Better Angels Of Our Nature
by FarenMaddox
Summary: After his lips were sewn shut, Loki hates anything covering his mouth, and somebody really should have told Thor that. Post-Avengers, totally broken Loki. This story has no plot outside of questionable use of Norse mythology. It is literally nothing but Thor & Loki feels. Also starring the Science Bros, and Good Guy Steve.
1. Shut Me Out

Author's notes:

*handwaves over so many things that are not correct* I've only seen the movies, is the first thing I should say. I looked up a few things on Wikipedia, but I've read like, next to nothing as far as actual comics. Second thing is basically SUCK IT. It's my first and probably only Avengers/Thor fan fiction, darlings. I am not doing months of rigorous research into the Marvelverse for a single story, especially not this one. This one exists solely because crippling emotional issues are my Candyland and I like it when pretty boys cry.

* * *

"Your presence is requested at the prison."

Thor jumped, causing Sif to look at him with concern. She didn't say anything.

Sif and his other friends had been nothing _but_ concerned, these past several days. Thor had been with them in that he had been in the same room, but he'd spent most of his time brooding silently, a cup of mead forgotten in his hand and their words to him falling on deaf ears. That this messenger had so clearly startled him meant that he was no longer even paying enough attention to notice when people walked into the room.

Thor knew they were concerned, but he could hardly help it. He was thinking of his brother, constantly. Sometimes of the punishment that awaited him, when they got around to deciding what it would be, and often of what Thor might be able to do to lessen it if it was too harsh. But mostly, Thor just thought about Loki. Thought on how they had come to this, and how long ago things must have gone wrong for it to be this way now.

Thought on why Loki had let go of his hand.

He had been brooding, pretending to drink, wandering along with his stomach tied in knots, ever since they'd returned to Asgard. Mostly, he wished he'd been a better brother. Of anyone, Thor should have been the one to notice that Loki was suffering. He was the one who should have fought harder for Loki to be seen by Father, to feel as valued as Thor always had. There should have been give and take, and Thor should have met Loki on his own terms once in a while instead of always, ever forcing him to come to Thor's. Father had been right about Thor, at least. Vain, cruel, and greedy, even toward the brother he claimed to love.

If he had stopped looking at his own damn reflection in the mirror for five minutes, maybe he would have noticed that his brother was in pain, maybe he could have seen it before the pain twisted him so. Maybe Loki would have held on, that day. But they couldn't know that now, could they?

It was easy now, to see that by the time they'd found themselves hanging over that abyss, it was already far too late. So easy to see _now_ that of course Loki would let go. Even then, even in that moment, maybe if Father could have found a kind word for him—but he hadn't.

That Loki had let go . . . that was their fault. What happened after, the creatures Loki had taken up with and the cruelty he'd shown to the people of Midgard, those were Loki's own choices and they were poor, but Thor could not stop thinking _they_ shared some of the culpability in that as well. Himself, and Father, and all those who had done so much to make Loki believe he was not welcome in Asgard.

Thor missed him. Terribly. Sweet, clever, sensitive, quick—Loki as a child had been the best brother he could have wanted. And now he wanted him back. He knew that Asgard must mete out punishment for Loki's crimes against Jotunheim and Midgard, but after that, Thor had thought, after punishment had been decided maybe there would be some way to begin re-building the love that had once been between them even as they slowly and painfully re-built the Bifrost.

And now his presence was requested in the prison where Loki was being held. Requested by . . . his brother? Thor leapt to his feet, causing the messenger to jerk with surprise much as Thor had.

"Thank you," he said dismissively, and left without the messenger, leaving the concern of his companions behind, grateful to be doing _anything_ other than this brooding and guilt-ridden _waiting_.

He paid no attention to the grandeur of the shining city as he strode through huge golden halls, past airy windows and fanciful frescoes. The time he'd spent in Midgard had taught him the true beauty of his home, but he had no eyes for it lately. First he'd been mourning the brother he'd thought dead and longing for the girl he'd thought beyond his reach. Now the Bifrost was being repaired, but the joy of his brother's return to Asgard had been snatched away by Loki's actions.

But if Loki had asked for him . . . What did it mean? Thor was nearly running by the time he arrived in the hall where Loki's cell was kept. Even here, Asgard was beautiful, the prison built of white stone walls and gilded edgings. Thor could not help his uncharitable thought that the prisoners held here would have little cause to appreciate beauty when their lives and fate were unknown to them.

Volund bowed to him, although he did not move from his position in front of the cell's door. He had been set to keep watch over Loki until the tribune held trial. "My Prince."

"He asked for me?" Thor confirmed eagerly. He hardly knew what to expect, probably a faceful of spittle and poisonous words, but it would be a beginning, at least—

"No, my Prince."

Thor's stomach dropped. Volund coughed nervously.

"I did."

"You—?"

"Yes."

"Speak, then," Thor demanded impatiently.

Thor noticed how ill at ease Volund seemed, the stiff set of his shoulders and the nervous casting of his eyes. Had Loki been speaking to him through the door, trying to unnerve him? It was unbecoming of a warrior of Volund's caliber to succumb. Still . . . Thor couldn't think of the madness he'd seen in his brother's eyes without breaking into a cold sweat. He shouldn't judge Volund too harshly.

"Forgive me—"

"I shall not, if you do not speak your mind, and quickly."

Thor had never suffered from an overabundance of patience, which would be no secret to Volund, so hopefully he would not take undue offense. Thor had too much on his mind for more pleasant conversation.

Volund licked his lips and hurried on, stumbling over his words. "I request permission . . . That is, I request, and pardon my pride, that you overturn your earlier command . . . I wish to remove the muzzle from Loki's mouth."

"Remove the— why is it still on?!" Thor demanded incredulously. "He's been here three days!"

Volund gaped at him. "The men who escorted him to this cell told me it was to be kept on. They told me that the order came from you, my Prince!"

"I assure you it did not!"

Thor attempted to rein in his temper when Volund's eyes widened in fear and he took a hasty step backward. But it was difficult to do, knowing that on the other side of this door his brother languished with that muzzle on him . . . It had only been to stop him from attempting a spoken spell to escape until they reached Asgard and had other methods of binding his magic, it was supposed to come _off_—

"I am curious to know why you sent for me to ask such a thing," Thor managed to say, almost reasonably. For himself, this was his brother. To Volund, this was a traitor he had no love for. He'd always been too stupid to be suspicious of other people's motives (that was _Loki's_ job) but he was learning.

But Volund's face was grim and dark, perhaps even sad. "See for yourself, my Prince," he murmured, and unlocked the door. The heavy oak creaked as it swung just wide enough for Thor to look in, and Volund's hand was at his sword, just in case.

Thor looked inside and immediately reeled back, feeling desperately like he was going to be sick. He looked back to Volund and found that the guard appeared just as ill, and Volund rose in Thor's estimation for that. He stepped forward into the doorway, unable to help the keening noise that caught in his throat.

"My brother," he choked.

Loki had been given a comfortable-enough bed. He was sitting on it, hunched over, pale and small and diminished. His hands were still bound in front of him, as they had been upon arrival, but the fact that they were also locked to a small chain around his ankles was new.

"I did that," Volund said bravely. "This morning. To stop him from harming himself any further. Then I sent for you, my Prince. I did not— I didn't know what to do."

Thor's eyes went to Loki's hands, to understand why Volund had restrained them. His fingers were raw and bloody, his fingernails broken. And around the edges of the muzzle, still locked over his mouth, the skin on his cheeks had been gouged raw. There was a bare patch on his scalp, above his ear, where he'd torn his own hair out. His arms were bared and littered with bruises—from attempts to restrain him, most likely. For all the evidence of violence, right now Loki was still. He stared at the wall and rocked silently back and forth, hugging his knees to his chest.

This, too, was Thor's fault. So busy brooding that he had not even thought to check on the situation in the prison. He knew it would be looked on with disfavour if he visited his brother before the tribune gathered, for they would assume he was interfering, but he should have . . . Should have done _something_.

Suddenly, Loki's eyes snapped to Thor. They should have been full of malice and glittering bright with his cunning. But Thor could not even find _recognition_ in Loki's gaze. Just fear. Pure fear and panic, just barely caged inside his hunched-up posture. Behind the muzzle, there was a broken cry of an animal in pain.

Volund shouldered him aside and slammed shut the door. Thor ought to reprimand him, ought to yank the door open and go to his brother. Ought to— he ought to—

Thor fell against the far wall, sagging in shock, sickened and numbed.

"Why would he harm himself so?" he asked, hearing his own voice sound strangely hollow.

Volund shifted his feet. "Forgive me—"

"Speak!" Thor roared.

"I think the muzzle gives him unpleasant memories of when Brokk and Eitri captured him."

Thor frowned in confusion. It had been long since he'd heard those names. "The dwarf brothers? The smiths? When did they _capture_ my brother?" A cold feeling crept over him. There had been a story in Erik Selvig's book, but Thor had written it off as nonsense. For one thing, Thor would have known about it _when it happened_, would he not? How would Volund know something about Loki that Thor himself did not know?

Volund's eyes had gone wide and scared again. "My Prince— I didn't— I never meant to keep this as a secret! I thought you knew! I did!"

"Speak now, Volund, or live to regret it," Thor hissed.

"It was when you were younger, it was— I don't know why you weren't in Asgard yourself, my Prince. I would have told you, you must believe me, only I thought you knew. It was— we all thought it best not to bring it up again after it ended."

Thor again forced himself to rein back his temper. He trembled for control. Volund had done nothing wrong, indeed was helping him now. He made a fist of his hand and felt his nails cut into his palm, breathing deeply.

"Tell me now, Volund. Tell me everything."

It was a royal command with an unmistakable ring. Volund obeyed.

As he was told the story, Thor knew when it must have happened. He and Volstagg had decided to go hunting and adventuring in Vanaheimr. They'd been away almost an entire winter, over two months. They'd meant to come home earlier, but they'd gotten word of a great wolf that was plaguing a village, and drew out several weeks while hunting to kill it so that they could enjoy the village's hospitality. "Hospitality" mostly meaning the affections of the village's greatest beauty, who had been glad enough to unleash her charms on the young prince of Asgard. Both of them in the full flower of youth and drunk with the delight of each other, and Thor had never wanted to come home. Warm, brandied nights around a hearth fire, swapping stories of valour with the men and kisses with Astrid. And while he was away . . . Each fact drove into him like a nail. He'd been having the best winter of his life, while _this_ had happened in his absence.

Loki had been anxious to please the court with gifts.

Loki had gone to the dwarves even though relations with them were already strained to the breaking point. They didn't like the golden giants who thought they could rule the dwarves. Loki had thought he could talk his way into their good graces.

Loki had been unable to help his mischievous nature. It was still unclear what exactly he'd done, but it was clear he was the only one who'd thought it was funny.

The dwarves did not like tricksters.

The dwarves had taken it upon themselves to teach Loki a lesson, far from home and far from help. Thor had been feasting and drinking and making love while Loki had been captured and terrified and alone.

Brokk, leather thread and thick bone awl— Thor tried to flinch away from the images that rose up, but they followed him deep into his thoughts and burrowed in. Heavy brown stitches taut on clever and soft lips. The way Loki's eyes looked when he was in pain; Thor knew that look and he could see it now. Could almost taste Loki's desperation that someone might come to help him even though no one had. Blood flowing heavy when he tried to scream.

Thor shuddered all over. "How long?"

"They had him for a week before Odin stopped negotiating to avoid war and started threatening to exterminate Svartalfaheimr. They insisted that he was not being tortured, he was only being taught a lesson, they even said there was a gap in the stitches so he could eat and drink . . . But when they returned him, it looked as though he hadn't been given anything. He was weakened."

"Father . . .?"

"He couldn't retaliate without starting a war, and he couldn't afford it then, that was when things were so touchy with the Alfar. He set up a trade embargo against Svartalfaheimr, though."

He had. Thor had never questioned the embargo because he'd never liked dwarves and didn't think Father had either. He had never asked why. He'd half-forgotten the threat of a possible war with Alfheimr because back then he'd been too young to care for his duties and had left everything to Odin.

Thor had returned to Asgard in triumph, a giant wolf pelt over his shoulders, with cheers and blowing trumpets and a lingering worry that Astrid might be pregnant. He remembered, now. Among the welcoming faces, he did not see his brother. Loki had spent that entire spring in the great library, claiming to be busy with his studies and snapping at Thor anytime he tried to drag him out into the cool spring sunshine. Mother, her face soft and sad, imploring him to leave Loki to his moods until he was ready to be in company.

Thor's head began to pound with pain as he tried to wrap his mind around it. His parents had shown an overly-calm acceptance of Loki's strange silent dark spring. He would only leave when he would go out on long, solitary horseback rides, sometimes gone for an entire day or two, and always back to his chambers or the library right after. He grew thin and gaunt during that time and something more than his usual paleness—the ghost in the library. Thor had been desperate with concern over the fact that no one seemed to be willing to intervene, and he'd started following Loki around, neglecting his own friends in favour of sitting quietly in the library just to keep watch.

One day Loki had looked up at him quite suddenly, seeming only then to notice that Thor was hovering close and quiet and worried nearby. He'd smiled, closed his book, and asked Thor to join him on a ride. It was as though he'd decided that day that his dark spring was over, laughing and challenging Thor to a race. He'd rejoined them at the feasting table, gone back to sparring and drinking with them when he wasn't at his books or his magic.

It all made so much more sense now.

Thor felt blinded by his headache and his stomach roiled with sickness.

"No one told me," he said in disbelief, looking at Volund as if he could change that. Thunder rumbled outside, and Volund's eyes were wide with fear. "No one _told me_!" he roared, and suddenly the door to Loki's cell was crashing open and Thor was before his brother with one long stride. "If they had told me, I never would have done this," he whispered, staring at the muzzle, at the bleeding around the edges. Loki didn't even look at him. Thor didn't even remember calling Mjolnir, but he was lifting it in his fist, and using the gentlest tap he could manage to break the lock on the muzzle. Thor didn't pause to wince at the broken skin on Loki's face or the bite marks he'd inflicted on his own lips. He lifted Mjolnir again to break the shackle at his ankles.

He grasped his brother's face in his hands, wondering at his own ability to be tender when he was so very angry. "I am so sorry," he said. "For . . . For all of it, Loki. I am so sorry."

For a moment, their eyes met and Thor thought he was understood. Then Loki gasped in shock and flung himself away, off the bed, into a corner of the room. He hunched down, pressing his back to the wall, his eyes wild and his chained, wounded hands scrabbling at his knees. He closed his eyes and sobbed.

"Brother," Thor said, aghast at this evidence of fear. He crouched down and put a hand on Loki's arm. "I—"

Loki sobbed again and fled, retreating into a new corner, the chain between his hands held out like a weapon.

"Oh, Loki," he whispered, hearing his own voice sound broken. It made only too much sense that Loki was afraid of him right now. He stood and went back to Volund in the hall. "I want food and drink brought to him immediately. I want a healer to treat his face and hands. And I want the names of the men who brought him to you. We will see how they like wearing a muzzle for three days. If they find me merciful enough to allow them to live that long." Thor dropped the offending object to the floor, although he'd scarcely realized he held it, and then he ground it to pieces under his boot. "I will speak with my father, and then I will return. Have it done by then."

Volund executed a deep bow, looking relieved. "You have my word."

Thor grasped his shoulder in passing to thank him. It occurred to him just how brave the guard had been, to send for him and question what he believed were Thor's own orders. Volund would be rewarded for that, Thor would ensure it. Just as he would ensure the men who'd thought to play a sick joke would receive their just reward. He looked forward to _that_.

* * *

"Father!"

He stalked into Odin's informal hall, and found that he was conversing with Mother in private. Even better.

"What is wrong?"

"Brokk the dwarf," Thor said brutally, wielding the name like a club and watching his father wince away as though it had truly struck a blow. Mother closed her eyes, grief sketching deep lines onto her face. "Why was I never told?"

"There was nothing you could have done; indeed I found myself glad you were absent because your hotheadedness would have ruined any chance for peace to continue. I did what I could and then it was done. It was better to allow Loki to forget it. It would only have upset you to know of the matter."

"Upset?" Thor repeated in disbelief. "I was _upset_ when I spent a season hovering over him, worried that he was ill or worse! I was _upset_ that he barely spoke for weeks at a time! And now? Now I am _upset_ that he has spent three days with a muzzle covering his mouth for some guard's amusement!"

"Oh," Mother gasped.

Father's face twisted in fury.

"Who was it?" he demanded.

"I don't know yet, but trust me that when I find them, they will find out just how _upset_ I am! But how can I punish someone, when I was the one who put it on him to begin with! Do you understand? I did it unknowingly, and I _should have been told_."

"Has something happened?" Father asked, mind sharp as ever.

Thor felt no qualms about telling them what he'd seen in the prison, in the most brutal terms he could spit out, and hearing himself go hoarse and strained when he finished with, "He didn't seem to know me."

Mother had begun to cry. Good. She hadn't done anything to save Loki, either, nor had she told Thor of his brother's fate. She shared the blame for this. Even Father looked like he might be close to tears. Thor was viciously satisfied by their grief, even though he knew it was ungenerous of him.

"We will go to see him now," Mother declared, wiping her tears and straightening her back. "We should have . . . gone before now."

Loki in chains would have been hard for them to look upon, finding something to say to him harder still. Thor was not ignorant of why none of them had ignored the tribune to visit Loki, but now it seemed it had only meant they had failed him again.

So Thor led them down to Loki's prison cell, hoping that seeing Mother would help.

Volund dropped to a knee when he saw them in the hall coming toward him. He was too afraid to address the Allfather directly, but he did speak.

"My Prince. I've had food and water brought, but . . ."

He didn't need to find a way to end his thought, for Father was already yanking the door open, breaking the lock with a wave of his hand. Loki was revealed, pacing the length of his cell over and over like a caged lion, while the tray that Volund had ordered sat untouched on the bed.

"Loki, my son," Father said firmly.

Loki whirled around and cried out, the noise of an animal dying in a trap. He clawed viciously at his own mouth, leaving streaks of blood on his chin from his cracked lips and still-raw fingers. Stricken by the sight, Father allowed Mother to push past him.

"My darling boy," she began, reaching out to him. Loki flattened himself against the wall and hissed at her, baring his teeth. She backed away and clung to Father.

Thor decided to try once more. "Brother, please," he said, remaining at a distance. "It was my fault that this went on. Will you not tell me how angry you are with me?"

For a moment, Thor thought he might. But he only crouched low in a corner again and began to weep softly.

"He's frightened," Father said, his voice strangely toneless, faded. "We should leave him alone. I would also like to be alone right now."

"No," Thor snapped, disrespectful in his anger and following Odin out after casting one last hopeless look back at Loki. "I would have words with you, Father—"

"Thor," Mother said, catching at his arm and holding him back. "Not now."

He stared at her hand on his arm and was startled by how it upset him. He'd never been angry with his mother before, truly never that he could think of.

"You had your part in this as well," he said at last, pulling his arm away with great care, trying to ignore how he shook with the strain of controlling and not lashing out. Trying to ignore the pain in her eyes, because he spoke the truth and did not care if it pained her.

Then he went to the stables and got his favourite mount, and took a very long ride to try to clear his mind. It didn't work as well as he'd hoped, so that night he gathered the Warriors and got very drunk and hit things until he was tired enough to simply collapse into bed and lose consciousness.

Things were no better in the morning.

* * *

Three days, they watched.

Three days, he paced his cell. Lay on the bed. Wept silent tears and clawed fresh gouges into his lips. He didn't ask for them.

In fact, he didn't speak. He would not even eat or drink, though sustenance was brought to him. He slept only fitfully and it never seemed enough. There were deep bruising circles under his eyes and raw scratches on his cheeks. He just paced, relentlessly, or at times crouched down in a corner as though to hide himself.

Thor rarely left the stone hall where Loki's cell was located. It frightened and upset Loki if Thor was in the cell, so he stayed outside it. He would wait for the moments when Loki's footsteps ceased, when he went to lie down on the bed. Those were his most lucid periods, and sometimes then he would listen to Thor. Never respond, but in those moments he seemed to know who was speaking to him. Thor could convince him to be still, to stop hurting himself. Once, even, Loki was calm enough that Thor was able to dab medicinal salve onto his wounds. His fingers were beginning to heal now that they had no muzzle to contend with, but he continued to make new injuries to his mouth.

Late on the third day, Father came down again. Thor knew that Odin had been busy in some way since they'd last spoken, but he'd rarely left this place long enough to eat or rest, much less seek out his father. Sif and the other warriors had stopped trying to distract him. Volund had told Thor that yesterday, when Thor had gone to sleep for a while, Father had come here to try speaking to Loki. Loki had become so distraught that Father had to leave again, and Loki had cried himself to sleep. Father and Mother had both stayed away since then.

"What do you want?" Thor asked his father bluntly. He was still not very pleased about the long-ago incident with Brokk being kept from him, and he'd spent most of his vigil reviewing everything he could find in his memory to understand why Loki was afraid of Odin.

"I've been speaking to the tribune, and I have convinced them," Odin said, but it wasn't pride in his voice, it was weary relief. "Loki is not fit to stand trial, and they have agreed to delay judgment. I told them it would be worse than useless to punish him for misdeeds he can't answer for, or indeed may not even be aware of the sentence passed."

Thor also felt relief, but at the same time he was afraid of Odin being correct. If Loki couldn't even be lucid enough to stand trial for his crimes, then he might be lost to them completely. And yet he was glad for the delay. It would lead to a wiser, less emotional decision from them all. Thor felt as though he was still on the beginning end of his journey toward learning to be king, but he had learned to value sound judgment over lashing out. It was a skill he had yet to learn.

"Can he be moved?" Thor was surprised he'd spoken, but the thought had been in his head since this morning and now seemed like a good time to ask. "I think that being in here has been . . . I think if he could see the sky, or have his books—"

"I've already arranged it," Odin interrupted. "I think the same. He will do better if he can be in his own chambers. He will be confined there, and there will be guards at his door. But perhaps, with his own things around him, he will settle."

Father had not always done right by Loki, but Thor was reminded that mistakes did not mean Odin didn't love him. He still called Loki his son, when he could have denied him.

"Thank you, Father," Thor said, and felt as though relief was a weight pressing down on his shoulders. Rather like the way mortality had felt so heavy on his limbs when he'd first arrived on Midgard. "He— I — thank you. Can it be done now?"

"I am here to oversee it," Father said simply, and clasped a hand on his shoulder as if he understand Thor's feelings. Guards were already appearing at the end of the hall, coming to ensure that Loki was moved safely and quickly from the prison to his rooms in the royal palace.

Thor knew there was plenty of suspicion in Asgard that Loki was feigning his madness. Volund had told him as much. The belief seemed to be that this was his trick, to wait until they were willing to move him and then make his escape. They were all fools— Loki hadn't asked to be moved. If he was secretly capable of scheming, he was doing a poor job of it.

Thor and Volund, and Father it seemed, were the only ones who knew the truth of it. They'd looked into Loki's eyes, and it wasn't cunning looking back. It was hardly even _Loki_. The grief, shame, and fear that they had all seen in snatches as everything had begun to unravel, ending a week ago in Midgard—fear, grief, and shame were all that was left in him. Not that Thor was willing to believe that. He would not accept it. No one could break a mind like Loki's, _no one_. _Thor_ certainly could not, not merely with his idiotic method of binding up his trouble-making brother. Such a tiny thing that Thor had done so inadvertently . . . it _could not_ be the one thing that put Loki beyond his reach.

. . . Could it?

No. He _would not_ accept that.

But it didn't help when he thought of Loki's appearance and actions on Midgard, and began to wonder if he'd already been beyond reach by then.

Loki appeared in a more lucid state when Thor and Volund coaxed him forward, but he lost what little calm he had when he walked into the open air and saw the long hall before him. He gasped and shuddered and tried to backpedal into his cell. The guards were not patient and laid their hands on him and began to drag him away, marching him along with harsh grips on his arms. Thor couldn't stand the sight of the manacles digging into Loki's wrists when he tried to fight them. He pushed past them all and stooped down, catching Loki's legs. He ignored the shouts of alarm from the guards, and as they passed through the doors and into the open air of Asgard, he slung his brother up onto his shoulder, holding him tight in case he struggled. Loki only whimpered and laid still in his grasp.

Thor led the way to Loki's rooms in the royal hall, a path he knew with his eyes closed. How many times had he sought Loki out when he tired of his carousing friends? How many times had he come here to get advice from his crafty little brother? Not that he ever heeded it . . .

"Stay out," he commanded them all as he came to Loki's door. Odin had been just behind Thor, the whole way here, and now he nodded to confirm Thor's words. The guards obeyed and arranged themselves in the hall outside.

Thor carried Loki all the way to the desk where he wrote letters and studied, where a small pile of books had been gathering dust. Thor saw they were all books written by scholars about Odin's long reign and the methods of rule. Loki had intended to be a good king, hadn't he?

Thor set Loki down in the chair at his desk, and then followed a stray thought and raised one of Loki's hands to lay it on his books.

"See, brother," he said encouragingly, "you're in your own rooms now. You're home. You're safe."

Loki looked down at the book beneath his hand, and then looked at Father. He shuddered and closed his eyes, snatching his hand away. He started tugging at his hair, where he'd already created a bald patch. His breathing was the quick, senseless sound of a rabbit underneath the paw of a hunting hound.

"Father," Thor said cautiously. It wasn't seemly to rebuke him or make demands when Father had done this for Loki.

Father made a frustrated growling noise and Thor wasn't sure whether it was directed at him or inward onto Odin himself. But it made Loki sob softly and curl his legs up into the chair to try to hide his face. Father hurried out of the room.

"There," Thor said, putting a hand between Loki's shoulders. "Now we're alone, back home where we belong." He rubbed Loki's back, and pulled his hand away from his hair before he could yank any more of it out. "It will be better here, with your books and a window. You'll be safe here." Loki was relaxing, just a little. "Loki?" Loki's eyes were opening, looking at him. "Do you know where you are right now?"

Loki nodded so minutely that Thor almost didn't see it. But he _did_ see it, and his heart leaped.

"It is better here, isn't it?"

Another tiny nod. Thor couldn't hold back his grin.

"There you are, brother," he said warmly, gripping his shoulder and tousling his dirty hair. "Will you speak to me?"

For a long agonizing moment, Thor thought he would. Then Loki suddenly whimpered and clawed frantically at his lips. His eyes went sick and lost again. A jagged fingernail drew blood.

"Please, please, Loki, don't do that." He pulled Loki's hands away, and that made his brother scramble up out of his chair and back away from him. Thor didn't try to approach him again. "Is there anything? Are you hungry or thirsty? Shall I send someone to light a fire in your hearth? Can I— can't I help you?"

Loki started to pace the room. It was the same mindless, unceasing tread as the dungeon, but since the floor was larger, he got a better momentum going before he'd be faced with a wall and have to whirl around and head in a new direction. Thor slumped, feeling defeated. He'd thought this would help. He'd thought Loki would feel better here.

"I'll give you some time," he muttered. "I'll come back later."

Loki just kept pacing.

-o-o-o-

Nothing seemed to work. Not Mother, not Thor, not the few servants brave enough to enter the room could speak to him or help him. After a further four days, Loki's self-imposed fast caught up to him.

When Thor came hurrying at a summons from the guards, he found Loki in bed, shivering and glassy-eyed with fever. Frigga came right on Thor's heels, and Loki was so confused and ill that he didn't even shrink away from their touch as he had been. He no longer had the bindings on his hands, because it seemed certain that he hadn't the presence of mind to attempt escape, but even that hadn't helped. Thor had thought they were making progress two days ago, when he'd allowed Thor to put salve on his face again and had been persuaded to drink a cup of water. Thor had nearly cried at that, more so when Loki had allowed him, in his joy, to embrace him for a moment. Now it seemed whatever had happened two days ago had meant nothing at all.

"Oh my son," Frigga whispered, her hand stroking the greasy tangle of Loki's hair. "What can I do for you? You know that I love you, but I don't know how to help. Will you not tell me?"

Thor had found, in his long brooding silences, that she was not truly to blame for any of this, he himself was the one who should have seen this and stopped it sooner, and it caused him pain to see her distraught. So now he put his arm around her so she could lean on him and cry softly.

"Thor, what shall we do?"

It wasn't as helpless a cry as it seemed. Thor knew his mother too well for that, and he knew she asked it now because she'd seen him thinking of it himself. They both knew that there was only one thing to do now.

"We have to get him out of Asgard. No matter what it takes. There is no way he can recover here, all his memories here are too stained now." He needed to get away from all the people who'd tormented him, whom he'd tormented. All his memories of Asgard were laced with betrayal. In his madness, he showed a child-like fear of them all. It seemed he felt guilt enough without receiving punishment.

"I've only just gotten the two of you back," Mother wept, pressing herself deeply into Thor's embrace. "I don't want to lose you. Not either of you. Not again."

"You won't, Mother," Thor assured her. "This will only be for a short time. I swear to you, I will bring him back, whole again, the little brother and son we remember." Then he looked at Loki again, soaked in fever sweat, lips bloody, hands twisted desperately in his bedclothes. "No. Not like that. When we return, it will be better. He won't doubt us anymore. Because— because he and I were meant to rule _together_. I should have— even when we were young, I—" Thor couldn't pour out his whole heart to his mother, not when Loki should have it first. "Well. We _will_ come home. If Father lets us go," he said, almost an afterthought. He would go whether he had permission or not.

"He will." Mother pulled herself out of his arms, and her voice had gone hard as cold iron. "I will make sure of it."

"And where will you go?"

They were both startled at Odin's voice, and turned to see him waiting at the door of the outer room, not coming in to the bedchamber.

Thor had not truly thought about that, but there was only one answer in his heart. "Midgard. I know they have cause to reject him, but I also know that their people show mercy to those whose minds are ill. And I have friends there who will listen to my request, and they will trust me if I vouch for his behaviour during our stay."

Odin nodded as if in agreement, but what he said was, "It won't be allowed. The tribune will never accept that."

"You are king," Thor began, hotly, but stopped himself at Odin's disappointed look. He _had_ learned much from his banishment, and he knew that a king could not always simply do as he pleased.

But. He cared more for Loki than for any of them, possibly more than anyone in any of the realms. Adopted he might be, but Thor had known him since before he took his first steps—he honestly could not _remember_ a life before his brother. Thor would defy any ruling council and Odin Allfather as well, to stop this terrifying ache in his chest as he watched his brother slowly dying before his eyes. He would give up Mjolnir again if it would stop the way Loki tore at stitches that weren't real and forgot the ones who cared for him. He'd do anything if it meant Loki wouldn't have to live every moment in abject fear of something only he could see. He'd take on any warrior if a fight could save him. It was his _right_.

"I will go to the tribune myself and explain," he said.

Father was watching Loki, who moaned in pain and scratched weakly at the scabs on his lips.

"I will call them for you."

* * *

Thor went in preparing for a fight, but in the end it was easy. Odin had been wrong that they would be unwilling. They'd all heard enough about Loki's condition, and now it seemed they just wanted the problem to go away. It was hard to object to Thor's plan to take the sick and broken troublemaker far from them and take responsibility for him personally. They tried to be harsh, stating that Loki was banished from Asgard, trying to make this their own idea. But it was still obvious that they were relieved to shift responsibility.

Odin had promised to use his own power to do to Loki what he'd done to Thor. He planned to strip him of power and make him mortal. It was the only way they could be entirely certain the humans would be safe, but it would also give them less time to rebuild his physical strength. If he had his magic and strength taken from him, then he could die as easily as the humans did.

The main objection from the tribune was that this plan would take their beloved and maturing heir-apparent away from home for an undetermined amount of time. Thor couldn't help feeling a little pride at that, but he swallowed it down and reminded them that so long as repairs to the Bifrost continued in earnest, he could return if there was need of him. He remembered to thank them for their wisdom and generosity, even though it stuck in his throat.

That night, he drank and feasted with his friends one last time. They were silent about the state of affairs, preferring to tell rousing stories of their past triumphs and allowing Thor an evening of laughter. They drank until they were all of them legless, putting arms around each other and making weepy declarations of everlasting friendship.

Next morning, as soon as Thor could stand the sunlight, he met with Father and Mother in Loki's chambers so they could say goodbye in a more dignified manner.

Loki was almost lucid, although he was incredibly weak. He acted as though he knew Thor, and allowed his brother to prop him up in bed against his pillows, and then he allowed Mother to caress his cheek and tell him she would miss him. But when Father reached out, he bared his teeth in a snarl. He tried to fight him, but he was too ill for that and he collapsed backward in a faint. Thor would have wished they could have had a better farewell, but he assured himself that things would be greatly improved when they were able to return.

Sleipnir helped Thor carry his brother to the bridge, and Father went with them, quiet and solid at Thor's side. Just the three of them, no guards as an escort. Heimdall's greeting was grave and brief. Thor knew that Heimdall had reason to wish all this pain, and more, on Loki, and it was the respect he bore for Odin that stayed his tongue. Thor was grateful not to have a reason to restrain his temper again. He was full of worry and regret, and wasn't sure he _could _have restrained it.

Heimdall told them that the Bifrost could place them in New Mexico where Thor had landed before, or in an hour he could drop them into a place called Siberia, which was a desolate frozen wasteland. Thor had not cared for the desert heat, but this Siberia could only make Loki worse. "Get us as close to Puente Antiguo as you can, please," Thor said, feeling weary already at what would be waiting for him. First a desert to cross, and he knew it wouldn't take long before he was being interrogated and possibly even held prisoner. He was certain he could get out of it, in the end, but it was going to be a long day.

He turned to Father. "If I see no improvement in a few weeks, I will come back. He will be . . ." _Dead or close to it_. "But if he does, if things get better—"

"I will wait for your word," Father said quickly. He wouldn't even need to, Thor thought, feeling foolish. He would be here, with Heimdall, watching. "Take whatever time you need, my son. It is not as though time holds great meaning for us," he added, a rare joke. Then he looked at Loki and his smile fell away. "When he can hear you again, tell him I said . . . Tell him . . ."

"I will, Father," Thor promised. He knew what Father would say. Then he pulled Loki down from Sleipnir and propped his half-conscious brother against him. "Are you ready, brother?" he asked, trying to liven him up if he could. The desert would go easier if Loki was calm.

Loki shivered violently, and Thor tightened his grip. But his eyes were alert right now, and that was a good sign.

"Farewell!" Thor said. And stepped forward.

The Bifrost crackled and groaned alarmingly, but it held. There was a roaring of wind and colour and cold and dark and heat and time and _wind_—

Thor choked on dust, and looked around himself. Squinted his eyes against the sunlight. They had arrived.

"Brother, we're here," he cajoled, shaking him and trying to get him to stand under his own power. "Can you walk?" He shielded his eyes and caught sight of the town through a shimmering haze of heat, no more than two miles distant. "We're very close."

Loki's fingers clutched into Thor's clothes, and he took a few stumbling steps at Thor's side before Thor decided Loki could _not_ walk. He lifted him up and carried him the two miles into town, telling himself that he had carried heavier burdens and that the desert was not as hot as it seemed. S.H.I.E.L.D. had probably already noted the atmospheric disturbance (he patted himself on the back for remembering some of the terms Jane had taught him) that was created during their passage, and someone was likely on their way already. Thor's wondered if they would give him time to explain before they tried to incarcerate Loki. _Tried_. Thor did not plan on giving him up so easily.

"You must try to walk," he urged his brother, setting him on his feet when they passed the first of the town's dusty buildings. He didn't want word getting back to S.H.I.E.L.D. of how weak Loki was right now. At least not until Thor had the chance to explain.

Loki stood upright, grasping what was needed, eyes sweeping over the familiar town. Most of the repairs had been completed, although it appeared they'd decided to leave the ruins of the fuel station and rebuild it elsewhere. The scorched earth where it had been was fenced off, now.

Loki's hand suddenly grasped Thor's arm, and his mouth opened. Thor's heart stopped.

"Water?"

The begging tone, the cracked and rasping voice . . . It didn't sound at all like him. But it was the first word he'd spoken since he'd been captured after the battle—two weeks gone, wasn't it? It nearly brought him to tears just to hear Loki speak at all.

"Yes, let's go find some water," Thor said gladly, just as eager as Loki seemed to be to relieve his parched throat. He thought they would remember him at the diner, and they would have no cause to bar Loki from entering since he had not shown his face when he'd come after Thor.

. . . That still hurt. Even realizing now how much pain was behind Loki's anger, it still hurt that Loki had done that. But that was for later, it had to be. He supported his brother's limping steps up the sun-faded pavement, moving torturously slow all so that Loki could be seen walking and not being carried. They were being gaped at by the few townspeople who were braving the hottest part of the day to run their errands. Ah. Their clothes. He should have remembered they favored more simple attire here.

"Izzy, well met!" he bellowed cheerfully as he pushed open the door of the diner. He was happy to see that she was still here. Then his stomach dropped as he remembered the lessons his friends here had taught him about Midgardian currency, which he did not posses. "What would be the charge for a glass of water?" he asked in a low voice, leaning on the counter and trying to call up some dregs of charm.

"I wouldn't charge you for water," Izzy answered incredulously. Her eyes flicked to Loki, who was limp and pale and panting, clutching at a stool. "He got heat stroke?" she asked with alarm. She was already snatching up a glass and pouring from a pitcher of ice water she kept at the counter. "Here, you need to drink this all up, and you'd better lie down in one of the booths. You've got to stay out of the sun and get re-hydrated. Don't drink too fast, okay?"

She handed two glasses of water to Thor. "You don't look so good, either. Nice to see you again, though. You better help him," she nodded at Loki, who was attempting to take her advice and get to one of the empty booths. Unfortunately, he couldn't seem to find his balance and was tilting rather sideways. Thor quickly rescued him and somehow managed to get Loki and both glasses to the booth. He sat Loki down and put the glass in his hands. Loki took it eagerly enough, but actually drinking was a problem. The press of it against his wounds caused him pain, and he couldn't seem to figure out how to open his mouth. He whimpered and water dripped from his chin, pink with dried blood. Thor put a hand on Loki's back to steady him and found him shaking.

"It's all right," he said quietly. "Don't be afraid of these people. Shhh."

After that, the glass disappeared in short, painful gulps.

"Is he going to be all right?" Izzy asked, looking taken aback. "I could find somebody to drive him to the hospital in Albuquerque."

"No, he'll be fine. I hope," Thor sighed. "May we have more water?"

Despite Loki's trouble drinking, he seemed to have developed a quick and fierce possessiveness regarding his glass, and hissed at Thor when he took it to get it refilled. Thor ignored the stares of the patrons in the diner, and was glad that Izzy seemed above such gawking. She was truly a noble lady.

The door to the diner was flung open, and Thor turned to meet the threat. He barely recovered from his surprise in time to catch Jane as she leaped into his arms.

"Thor!" she cried out with joy.

"Jane Foster, you— I am glad to see you, but I thought you were gone."

"Oh, Thor, you should _see_ the facility they set me up in, it's incredible and my work is just taking off, I was just here to pick up some of the things I'd left with Darcy when I saw the clouds and I thought— I can't believe you're here!"

"I can hardly believe it myself," he laughed as he pressed her close and breathed in the smell of her. One very thorough kiss later, Jane stepped back and caught sight of Loki laying his head listlessly on the table.

"Ohmygod, is that—"

"It is," Thor interrupted before she could announce his name to all and sundry. It was possible they had heard his name on their televisions, although he hoped not. There was a great deal that the world didn't know about what had happened in New York, but Thor was hoping to avoid attention just in case. "He is unwell," he said awkwardly. He wasn't willing to explain everything in public. "He— he needs rest. That's why I've brought him here. And I wanted very much to see you, as well," he added, smoothing down a stray lock of her hair and kissing her again. "You look beautiful, my lady." She was sweaty and disheveled and very beautiful indeed. "I fear we won't have long."

He didn't even have to explain himself, because the next sound they heard was the whine of an approaching helicopter, which soon became a roar. They must be landing in the closest open space.

"I knew they would be coming. Jane. I do not know what kind of reception we will have, and I don't want you caught in anything—"

"Here," she said quickly, pulling a pen from her shirt pocket and grabbing his arm, pulling up his sleeve. Bemused, he let her scribble something on his skin. "This is my cell number. Call me when you can?"

"I will," he promised, shoving his sleeve back down to protect the numbers.

One last kiss, and she melted away, Izzy waving her into the kitchen just as the front door opened to admit another strange visitor. Nick Fury himself was the one who strode in, his coat flapping in the leftover wind of the helicopter rotors. The Lady Maria was with him.

"You damn well better explain yourself, because Agent Hill is feeling a little trigger-happy right now," the man snapped.

Loki had dragged himself upright and his eyes were darting everywhere, looking for a place to run. Fury's look held nothing short of utter loathing.

The Son of Coul. Thor could have wished they would send agents who had not loved that man so well as these two had. That was one crime for which Thor could not defend Loki at all.

"I will, but wait a moment," Thor said desperately, and tried to buy himself a moment to plan his words by turning back to Loki and giving him the new glass of water. "Drink," he urged quietly. If they took Loki into captivity, it might be some time before he got anything else. Loki stared at the water like he didn't know what it was, and his hands were shaking again. He shoved himself to his feet and tried to run.

Lady Maria drew her gun to fire and Thor prepared to bring her down. Neither action proved necessary, since Loki made it only a few steps before his eyes rolled back in his head and he listed sideways. He bashed his face on a stool as he fell, the sound reverberating and making them all wince. He tried to scrabble his way back up, but he only made it onto his knees. He knelt there at their feet, his nose bleeding and his broken fingernails digging into the floor.

"I'm still waiting for that explanation," Fury said.

The agent still had her gun on Loki.

Thor knelt down beside his brother and gently dabbed at his nose with a handful of paper napkins. "The shortest explanation is that my brother has lost his mind." He murmured soothingly to Loki to keep him from trying to run again. It would not go well the second time, if Loki even had strength enough for another effort.

"That's old news."

Thor would be humble. He would answer their questions as they deserved. He _would_. If he could stay under control and find the right words, they may yet leave here as free men.

"Truly, Director, he cannot function beyond his fear. He is not a danger now to anyone but himself. He's made himself very ill, in fact. I have not heard him speak in two weeks." Not counting his plea for water, but Thor thought the more general truth would suffice. "He is my brother still, but he is not the man who came here to bring chaos. He will not harm the people of your world, I swear. He is . . . He has been stripped of his powers, as punishment."

"Why the hell did you bring him back here?" the Lady Maria snarled. She still hadn't lowered her gun, and Fury hadn't asked her to.

"To get him out of Asgard," Thor shrugged, and tried to make them understand his anguish. "I fear for his _life_, if we cannot convince him to eat or sleep. This is the only world that I know that had made advances in this sort of illness."

"And what is your plan, exactly? You don't seem like you're planning to put him in the psych ward. You're just planning to find a place to stay and play nursemaid to the guy?"

"Yes," Thor said simply. Patience. Humility. He could do this.

"And if he finds his mind roaming around and screws it back in? And decides he's still interested in ruling the earth?"

"If he recovers, I will take him home again. Please, Director. I do not believe that Loki desires the subjugation of your people— every day, I am less convinced he _ever_ truly wanted that. And besides, his magic has been taken from him by the power of the Allfather, _our_ Father. His only weapons now are his mind and his tongue, and you see for yourself what state _those_ are in."

His mind was probably in better shape than Thor gave him credit for—if nothing else, Loki was quite lucid at this moment. He kept to his knees with his eyes on the floor, letting Thor clean the blood from his face with soggy napkins. He hadn't been this still and quiet since he'd been captured, and Thor knew that for at least this moment, Loki was _thinking_.

Then he suddenly began to whimper, jerking his face away and scrambling backward until his back hit the diner counter, rubbing fiercely at his lips. Was he gone away again, or was it only a show for Director Fury? For the first time, Thor wasn't sure. He had to hide his face, turning away as if in grief, so they wouldn't see how happy he was at the possibility that Loki was coming back. And if he was, he was working with Thor. He saw the fright and pain in Loki's expression though, and he couldn't be sure. Maybe he'd slipped away.

Director Fury and Agent Hill both looked rather disgusted by the whole thing, and the man pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Even his _sighing_ sounded impatient and angry.

"Right now I've got Stark, Banner, and Rogers all in New York City. So that is where you are going. We will find you an apartment to stay in, and make no mistake that _we_ will control that building and its security. You will be monitored. You will have a time limit to prove this to me. Your brother so much as _breathes_ wrong, and I will tell the Avengers to do what they do best."

"I am an Avenger," Thor said in surprise, inexplicably hurt by that. He'd thought that as the heir of Asgard he was above something so petty as having his feelings hurt, but it seemed he wasn't. Then it sunk in, that Fury was threatening to bring the entire power of S.H.I.E.L.D. down on Loki—which was one thing if Loki appeared to be cruelly bent on world destruction at the head of an invading army, but he _wasn't_. He was _sick_, couldn't the man see that?

Thor stood up and straightened himself. He towered over Fury. "I care greatly for the people of this world," he said with dignity. "I think I have given adequate evidence of that. My people have protected your people in wars you will never even know, and I have friends in this world. If I believed that Loki meant harm to anyone here, I would assemble the Avengers _myself_."

He was speaking slowly, evenly, carefully. And yet that last word came out on a snarl, despite his best efforts. Fury didn't even blink, but after a moment of consideration, he nodded. Then he spun around on his heel and headed for the door. "Let's go, then. And call your girlfriend, Thor, tell her where you're going. Unless she's still hiding in the kitchen."

Thor bent to help Loki get to his feet, unsure if he understood that they were meant to follow Fury. And so he was close enough to hear the soft, hoarse sound that Loki released. He _laughed_, just once, and hope burned ever brighter in Thor's heart. This was going to work.

* * *

A simple studio flat was found for them overnight. The bland-looking agent who escorted them to their new and temporary home was mumbling a great deal about furnishings, New York prices, foreign dignitaries getting better flats than him, and something about getting caught with a woman named Cecilia in something called a supply closet and how he was supposed to be fly-fishing instead of dealing with crazy people. Thor took it all in stride, especially since the mumbling agent actually seemed rather terrified the whole time, and kept pausing in case Thor wanted to object.

In truth, he could hardly contain his joy.

They'd run a battery of scans on Loki while they'd been flying to New York, but they hadn't argued with Thor's insistence on being present, and without magic Loki was unable to damage their equipment. He'd hurt one of the agents, but it was obviously the agent's fault. Thor had been standing there telling him that Loki was afraid and to back away, and the man had ignored him and reached in with latex gloves to grab at Loki's mouth. It was his own fault he'd gotten kicked in the gut and that they couldn't do any more tests, since Loki had spent the rest of the flight huddled up in a corner with Thor standing in front of him with Mjolnir in his fist.

Somehow, neither of them were under arrest, even though Thor had half-suspected that he'd spend days locked in some bunker trying to convince them that he was capable of getting a job in Midgard and earning money. Instead, they were being shown around a furnished apartment that had been given to them for a month. He'd also been given a cell phone, which he didn't know how to use but which he'd been told he would need. They called it gratitude for the times he'd defended their realm and said they'd discuss further arrangements in a month. Thor suspected they just didn't want him to get a job because that would mean he would be leaving Loki alone. Convinced that he was unwell, they might be, but they were not remotely convinced he was not dangerous.

Thor probably should be more suspicious of that, himself. He just didn't _want_ to be.

The agent was about to scurry out the door, projecting an air of eagerness to get away from them, but then he gasped and dug into his billfold. He pulled out a plastic square of the sort that Jane and Darcy had called "debt cards."

"This is for your living expenses," he explained. "It should be accepted as payment almost anywhere."

"Living expenses?" Thor asked quizzically. This was a new term for him.

"You know, food, clothing . . ." he coughed awkwardly, "shampoo. That kind of thing."

"This is unlooked for generosity," Thor smiled at him, hoping to put him more at ease. Instead, he went horribly pale. Did Thor frighten him that much? Was he new to this job?

Then a thought struck him, and he turned to Loki. His brother was standing in the center of the room, using one of his untrimmed fingernails to tear a long ribbon of skin from the back of his opposing hand, ignoring the drops of blood dripping onto the floor. That was probably the reason the agent looked uncomfortable. Thor hurried to Loki's side to stop him.

"You're the prince, in your world, right?" the young agent asked as Thor winced at the new wound Loki had made on himself.

"Yes."

"I honestly don't mean any offense, but that makes you kind of scary, to us. You're a lot stronger than us, you know? So it's in Earth's best interests if S.H.I.E.L.D. treats you well. Even if—"

"If?" Thor prodded when he didn't go on.

The agent was looking at Loki again, who was doing nothing this time. But Thor understood. _Even if your brother killed some of us_. Thinking on what had transpired here usually tied Thor in knots of grief and anxiety—Loki had ever been a trickster, but the malicious rage he'd vented here was not mere mischief and Thor considered it as much Asgard's fault as Loki's that he had fallen so far (and what if Loki had fallen too far to be called back from that darkness?)—but today it only made him feel tired. These past two weeks were taking their toll; Thor was weary to his bones. He hadn't slept at all last night, and not well in quite some time. The agent seemed to believe that Loki was still the man who'd brought that army here, but how could he be when he seemed so much like an animal gnawing his own leg off to escape a hunting snare?

. . . Most of all, Thor was tired of pretending he knew what he was doing.

"Please pass along my thanks to Director Fury," he said as warmly as he could, finally taking the little plastic card. "And our thanks to you for your assistance here." There was likely more that this agent was supposed to tell him, some instructions or rules or restrictions from S.H.I.E.L.D., but Thor was determined that it could wait for another day. He shut the door on the man before he could protest and locked it shut. He turned and collapsed onto a piece of the plain but serviceable furniture, sighing so deeply it was a wonder he didn't blow the walls down.

Loki was pacing. He cradled his injured hand to his chest and stalked the four walls.

"Loki," he called out. He was too tired to get up, too tired to see to the wound on his hand. Hadn't Loki seemed more and more rational since the moment they'd arrived here? "We're alone now. You're safe here. Do you understand me? It's just the two of us here, and none to hurt you. You don't need to be afraid here."

And Loki proved that all of this strangeness and the things Thor had been risking were worth it. He stopped and turned to listen, then he came over and perched on the edge of the sofa where Thor was sprawling. The two of them just looked each other in the eyes for a silent minute, and Thor could see that Loki had heard him. But then his eyes skittered away nervously and he picked miserably at the clotting blood on the back of his hand.

Feeling even more weary, Thor covered his hand and stilled it. "I know that you need time and I know that things aren't right yet. I won't press you to speak to me and I won't take you home before you're ready. All I ask of you is that you stop this. I beg of you, do not harm yourself. I won't have you in pain, brother, not anymore."

Loki jerked away from him, looking ill and frightened and shaken. His throat was moving, his lips were moving, and Thor held his breath.

Loki gasped a desperate breath. "Water."

The same word as yesterday, but a word nonetheless. Thor would take anything Loki could give him. He forced himself to his feet and went to inspect the kitchen, and found plastic bottles full of water in the fridge. It was the only thing in the small kitchen, in fact. He took out two bottles and faced Loki, assessing him with his eyes and wondering how far he could push this.

Loki hadn't slept, either, unless one counted his lapse into fevered, sluggish half-consciousness during their flight to New York. He had drunk what seemed like gallons of water, but he'd still eaten nothing. In this mortal form, what had been urgent was now imperative. Loki had always been rather thin but his deprivation had turned him to a ragged skeleton. Food and medicine for his wounds were incredibly important, because he'd lost much of his Aesir strength. But sleep was even more necessary, at the moment. For both of them. Thor didn't think he could carry on without some rest.

He honestly didn't know how either of them was still standing. He could see Loki trembling with weakness from across the room.

There was only room for one bed, but at least it was a large one. Thor guided Loki to it decisively.

"Sit."

Loki actually tried to acquiesce, but he was so weak that his legs gave out when he started to sit down and he fell. Thor pushed him backward so he wouldn't fall to the floor, and found himself frightened by the way Loki fell obediently back as though commanded to lie down. He seemed to be trying to curl up, but his long limbs were too heavy for him.

This obedient, weakened creature with the silenced voice and the bleeding hands . . . Thor would almost rather see Loki at the head of a ravening army again. He had to clear his throat before he could speak.

"Rest for now, and when you wake, we will go out and try to find food."

Schwarma couldn't be the only thing they sold in this city, and Thor would find something. If there was any mercy, Loki would eat it.

"Here, drink this," he said, holding out the water.

Loki took it, but when he tried to sit up to drink it, he couldn't manage. He closed his eyes and released a small, frustrated sob. Thor tried to find more strength in himself, so he could help. How did Loki not understand that his refusal to eat or sleep had led to this weakness?

"Let me help you," he muttered, sitting down beside Loki and lifting his head, pressing water to his lips and grimacing when he saw that he'd pressed too hard and opened a split in his cracked skin. But it was worth it, because Loki snatched the bottle from him and drank it all down. Anything that he'd take into his body had to be better than nothing.

Thor saw the bones of Loki's wrists jutting out, and when he turned away from Thor and curled onto his side to sleep, his spine showed through his thin shirt. Somehow, Thor had to convince him to stop dreaming about the sewing, about the muzzle, had to convince him that he was safe here, and get him to just _eat something_. He tried to remember Loki's favourite foods as he watched his tempestuous sleep, but he only lasted a minute or two before he was dragged into sleep himself.


	2. Break Me Down

_Please note (for the entire future of this story) that I suck at science and my admiration for Tony and Bruce's intelligence does not necessarily translate into being able to properly convey it. Their science conversation is pathetic, but I DO WHAT I WANT. Just go with it, guys._

* * *

Loki hadn't gone mad. He knew he hadn't.

He knew where he was, knew how they'd gotten there. He knew what day it was, how old he was, he knew what had happened.

It was only that he kept forgetting.

His mind had always been carefully organized, even when he was a boy. His logic and ability to analyze the world around him were what made him good at magic and why no one saw his tricks coming. But things were different now. He felt as though someone had come in and ransacked his mind. Somehow, he'd let his guard down, and something had come in and wrecked the place. He was frantically trying to restore order. But sometimes, he just _forgot_.

Sometimes, he was still there, with Brokk, with his mouth closed and his tongue stilled and fear filling him until he couldn't breathe—_Father abandoned me, no one's coming, I didn't mean it, please please please I can't stand this I'm losing my mind please take it off me, __Father help me_—but then he'd remember. That was long ago. Brokk was still alive to rail against the embargo, but Eitri had died two summers ago.

When Loki was fully present, he could look at himself, take stock of what he'd done to himself, see the fear in Thor's eyes, and he'd know that he forgot more often than he remembered. It chilled him to the bone. He was not in control. He could not imagine anything more terrifying than being out of control, and here he was. Brokk had never frightened him as much as he frightened himself.

In those moments when he was present, he saw the benefit of pretending he wasn't. It made them think he was harmless, possibly even a lost cause. It bought him time. More than anything, he needed time. He had to fight through this, put to rights all the things that had been knocked askew inside him, and try to stop forgetting. He couldn't do it, locked in a cell. The cell had been . . .

There were several days that were simply missing from his memory. He couldn't bring himself to think on them, because it brought the crippling fear back and he would feel himself starting to slip away. He needed time to fix things. He needed time to stop being so _afraid_. To stop feeling so _defeated_.

He didn't know how to do that. He couldn't formulate a plan. There was nothing.

That was why he'd gone with Thor. That was why he was with him still. There was nothing else. He'd fallen so far and failed so badly. There was no world he could go to that would give him refuge now. There was no way he could earn the forgiveness of Asgard—and he didn't _want it_, not from those bastards, why would he, he didn't—

Steady. He had to stay present.

Every time he tried to think of a way out of this desperate situation, he'd only find himself forgetting and going away again. He had no mercy he could fall back on and no safe place in all the realms, and someone had broken into his mind and taken away his last ability to defend himself. It wasn't fair. It couldn't be. He didn't deserve this much shame.

. . . Did he?

He had difficulty remembering all that had happened. Especially after he fell from the bridge—_you let go, you didn't fall, you __let go__—_but he remembered that people had died, some of them here. New York. The tower. Thor loved these people, these Midgardians, and Loki had tried to make them _his_ people because— No, he couldn't think about that. With the Chitauri, during that time, there was so much terror and pain and despair and loathing, and the worst part was that he couldn't remember _whose_ . . . Maybe that was when. That was when the stranger had broken into his mind and moved things out of their proper place.

He couldn't be sure of the things he'd done. He didn't know. He remembered being so very angry and hurt and afraid and _alone_ . . .

He'd had to please the Chitauri. That had been important, he could remember that it was important and skitter away from _why_ it was. That was why he'd stayed after the battle. He could have run, but he hadn't, he had waited for Thor. Because he had failed, and Thor had been there to take him away. If he hadn't, Loki would have had to go with the Chitauri. There was something worse beyond them, if they'd taken him there would have been _something_ . . . Loki remembered being desperately happy that Thor was there to claim him, but he couldn't think about what would have happened otherwise. He simply couldn't. It made him so afraid. It made him forget things again.

Thor.

Thor was his brother.

He'd wanted so much to deny it, but Loki had failed in that as he had in everything, because Thor was so damned stubborn. Thor wouldn't let anything change it. They were brothers and that was all. His behaviour these past . . .hours or _daysorweeksormore_ no, no, he had to remember that much, he had to know the passage of time at least because he wasn't mad, he wasn't—

Steady. Don't go away again.

Thor had changed. The banishment had changed him some, but in the time since then he'd changed much more. He was quieter and more thoughtful. Kinder. Some perhaps could be attributed to his silly human girl but much more than that, it seemed Thor had simply decided it was time to grow up.

It was supposed to make him a better prince, it was supposed to make him kingly. But he'd chosen exile, for however long this lasted. It made no sense. He was gathering up all his stubbornness, all his passion, all this newfound patience and gentleness, and he was pouring every ounce of it into . . . Loki.

That was so terribly frightening. He couldn't cope with Thor's devotion. Thor was putting himself at risk by taking responsibility for all this, and was wearing himself thin trying to live up to that.

Thor was laying right beside him, frowning even in his sleep. Loki had faked what signs of madness didn't come naturally until they all believed he was nothing but a broken shell, so he could be left in his brother's care. It hadn't been a plan, it had been a reaction, but it was all he had. Loki had failed so spectacularly, he'd even failed at dying. He was shattered and he'd thought all that was left was to face judgment and hope it killed him. He hadn't thought that Thor would intervene in his punishment. But Thor had, so Loki had clung to it for reasons he couldn't name.

He'd hurt people who were under Thor's protection. He might have even done it on purpose, only he couldn't think about that now. It—Thor— made no sense. Loki was a Frost Giant, they weren't even truly brothers, and Loki had hurt people. Thor had no reason to do anything but sit back and watch Loki burn.

Thor muttered in his sleep. It sounded like Loki's name.

Thor loved him still. Loki was no longer able to doubt it, no matter how he wished he could, and all he could do in his fear and pain and confusion was latch onto that and look for deliverance. He didn't know what Thor could accomplish and while they'd been in Asgard Loki had been forgetting everything so often that he couldn't guide him. Some of the fear had gone away the minute they were out of Asgard, but not enough.

It was too much. It was too hard to bear. Loki couldn't take the sight of Thor's face right now. He couldn't look anymore at Thor's belief that he was still worth it and he hated seeing that Thor had found the strength in himself to change, something that Loki couldn't find.

He fled.

He took the debit card that Thor had set down on a table, because there was a humming in his mind that told him he had to start giving something back to Thor before the man grew too weary to do this anymore. What if he left Loki stranded with only half a brain and three worlds hungry for his blood? Well, four, if the dwarves blamed him still for that embargo. He had to make Thor happy. He would bring back dinner.

There wasn't much Loki could do, when he was like this, but he could probably find food. Thor deserved something. Didn't he? Or was he repaying a debt he owed Loki for the pain in their pasts? No, he couldn't think about that, it made him feel dark and his vision went narrow like he was about to forget . . .

He was so very powerless. So very trapped. Hopeless. He had to depend on Thor completely and that was terrifying. He couldn't go home, to a world he knew and understood. Every minute there had felt like stones dropped onto his chest to suffocate him, and he'd felt like he'd lived every minute of it back in Brokk's imprisonment. All of them hating him, all of them judging him— they stitched him up to silence him— he wasn't allowed to be Loki, nobody liked Loki, he was supposed to be a shadowy copy of Thor— lock him up and put him away where they couldn't see him— sew him shut so he couldn't fight with his only weapon—

Thor had never asked him to change. Thor was the only one. Thor hadn't seemed to bat an eye at finding out Loki was a Jotun . . .

He'd thought there was nothing left, when Father rejected him. He'd been hanging there and Father had told him it was all for naught. He'd let go. He couldn't keep holding on while he was feeling jagged bits of his heart tearing through his chest, and he'd thought there was nothing left. He let go.

Falling into the Chitauri's world was the worst thing that could have happened. They'd latched onto his despair like it was nectar to them, and they'd crafted it into such staggering hatred that Loki didn't know how he'd managed to feel it all. He could feel it in there still, the hatred, like a pocket of infection, trying to bleed into his veins. He'd been wrong. When he'd let go, he'd been _wrong_. He'd still had Thor. It wasn't in Loki to comprehend such forgiveness and so he hadn't believed, and he'd repaid it with such unfathomable cruelty. It sickened him now, thinking of the way people had tried to run from him here. They'd died.

People had died because Loki didn't believe in forgiveness. He was forced to believe in it now, faced with everything Thor had done for him—but it was far too late, and it made him feel terribly sick. Truly, wrenchingly sick. So sick that he fell to his knees and vomited, right there in the street. He didn't know if he was trying to expel the hatred that still lingered and tried to poison, or if he was even now trying to expel his forced belief in Thor— it splattered across sun-warmed pavement, whatever it was. He tried to vomit up the violence the Chitauri had made him show to these puny little defenseless beings— and he was one of them now, just as small— tried to make the uncontrollable anger come out of him— All that pain and anger, it had to _come out of him_, he couldn't _stand it anymore_—

All that water he'd been drinking to try to help himself came gushing out of him. It stung his lips.

He had to face Thor's impossible forgiveness and love because he had no other choices. He wanted to run from it and believe it couldn't exist, but instead he was latching onto it until he wished he deserved it. He had nothing else left. Not even _himself_.

Someone was speaking. Loki hadn't realized he was on his hands and knees until he heard a voice over his head. He wanted to stand up and face them, but he was too weak. This mortal body wouldn't obey him. He just looked up.

"Yeah, Fury gave me this number and told me that you'd have some interesting news for me. That news wouldn't, by any chance, be related to the reason your brother is right in front of my house, crying in a pool of his own vomit, would it?"

Loki would have died in that moment if he could have. He had somehow wandered to Stark's tower. Whatever he was trying to do in his own mind had made him come back to the scene of his crimes. He couldn't have walked all the way here in this state, could he? Had he taken a cab? He didn't _remember_, that was very bad, he'd thought he was totally present—

"I'm not mad," he said fiercely. He tried to back away from the hate-tainted puddle he'd made. "I'm not mad, I'm not mad, I . . . I'm not . . ."

Loki needed to get up, to fight. Stark, the Iron Man, if he thought Loki was vulnerable, what would he do? He needed to get to his feet and try to do something, but he felt more sick and dizzy than ever before, and he was aching all over now. He couldn't get up, could barely even keep himself here, keep himself from _forgetting_.

"So he says he's not mad, but I'm looking at a lot of evidence that he's crazy as a box of Fruit Loops. Please advise."

Thor. Stark was talking to Thor. That was good, wasn't it? Thor would tell him. Thor would tell him that Loki was harmless, because Thor believed it. Loki . . . He was, wasn't he? Harmless. Curse everything and be damned, because he really was. He had no magic, no strength, no words, no clever mind. His hands hurt and his joints hurt and he just wanted to sleep. But he was so very _frightened_ when he realized that he had no way to fight.

Stark hated him. This was the Iron Man. He wasn't wearing armour but that didn't matter when Loki was so weak, and the _other_ scientist was standing right behind him, now. The one who turned into the monster. The one who'd crushed Loki into the floor as though he was nothing. Banner was standing there staring at him.

Loki was _terrified_. These people could _hurt him_ and there was _nothing he could do_. Thor was the only person who cared and he was too far away to stop them. Loki didn't want to hurt anymore, he really was just too tired and sick and he honestly didn't know if he could come back from forgetting if these men hurt him.

"Uh, okay, now he's crying and begging us not to hurt him."

He was? Loki clamped his mouth shut, and then he thought he was slipping away because he didn't like it when his mouth was shut. He dragged his fingers over his lips and tried to hang on to what was in front of him. He couldn't go away, not now.

"Well, uh, yeah, of course he's talking, hard to shut him up, isn't it? Sick? No shit, dude, he's puking on my sidewalk. Oh. Oh, you mean, like, actual crazy. Damn. You seriously thought this was the best place to bring him? Oh, I'm sure it's fascinating. Get down here, then, because I am looking _forward_ to this explanation of yours."

Suddenly Stark's stream of words stopped, and Loki's jaw ached with clenching it shut so his teeth wouldn't chatter. They were just staring at him.

He honestly didn't care about how humiliating he would have found this, before. He had been a prince of Asgard, but now he had nothing. Wasn't this all he deserved? Thor was the odd one for trying to give him anything better. Loki was nothing, now.

"Actually crazy is right," Stark muttered. "Also, what are the chances he ate red jello for lunch?"

"He doesn't look like he's been doing a whole lot of eating, does it?" the one called Banner replied.

Stark was looking at the hate-puddle on the pavement. "Shit, then. Ulcers?"

"Maybe."

"Thor said he hasn't spoken since they took off. Apparently we're privileged."

"Tony? Maybe we should take him inside."

"What? No, that's just, I don't want him in my house, we've barely repaired what happened last time, what in hell are you—"

"Look at him, seriously."

Loki laid down on the sidewalk and hoped that the weakness of his mortal body would catch up and take him now. Thor would be free and Loki could get away from this. He wished he could scream at them, tell them to stop looking, stop judging, they didn't know anything— they wanted to stitch him up, didn't they? Stop him being Loki, shut him up, because being Loki was never enough, so they laughed at you and beat you when no one was looking, and you had to be clever, but what if they took your brain? They sewed you up so you couldn't scream—

"Come _on_, Tony, he's crying."

"Wha— _Dammit_."

He was so _hot_, he was burning, but that didn't make sense, how could he be burning when he was so _cold_—

"Oh my fuck, what is he doing to his mouth, Bruce, why is he doing that to his mouth? God that's disgusting."

"How should I know? Can we just get him inside while he's not fighting us? Oh, wow, he's burning up."

He wasn't, he was freezing and he couldn't stop shivering. He hated the cold because it made him remember such awful things but he couldn't remember because he was _forgetting_. He tried to chase after his mind, it couldn't run away now, not here with these people who could hurt him so badly . . .

Loki went away.

Loki fell.

When he heard Thor's voice, he desperately clawed his way back. Panic roiled like nausea in his stomach because he didn't know how long he'd been gone. He couldn't be lost when he didn't know if he was safe. Thor was here though, wasn't he? He heard Thor's voice and Thor kept promising him he was safe. Thor was stronger than any of them and Thor loved him, as strange as it was, so Thor would fight them off if he had to . . . Thor was here. Holding his arms. Speaking to him.

He was present again. He looked around himself in surprise.

They were in some kind of modern bathing facility, and the place was a disaster. There were medical supplies strewn everywhere, and a few streaks of blood. Stark was there, looking harried and concerned. Thor was right in front of Loki. Loki himself was . . . He was huddled into the corner of a glassed-in box, a shower, there was a drain in the floor. His hands were bloody and his mouth was stinging with unbearable pain. He breathed deeply, trying to calm himself, and he felt tears or blood or maybe both drying on his face.

"What in all the realms?" Thor was roaring.

Stark threw up his hands. "I don't know! He was tearing up his lips, so I brought him in here to bandage him up. He freaked, okay? He was screaming and fighting us off, he started crying, and he tore half his own damn face open! Bruce had to leave, even. This guy kept saying he wanted to die and please let him go, and _I don't even know_, Thor. He kept saying it hurt and saying 'take it off' and begging for his father."

Loki jerked back when he heard that. He'd gone back to Brokk. To the sewing. Gone back to the time when he'd really thought Odin would come for him . . .

"Oh, Loki," Thor said in a voice of unbearable sadness. He put his hand under Loki's chin and forced him to meet his eyes. "Are you with me, brother? Are you alright?"

Loki couldn't look into his eyes. It hurt. Thor wasn't supposed to love this, this _sick creature_ Loki had turned into. Thor was tired and broken from all this, and he should get something back . . . Loki had gone to get him dinner. He remembered now. He couldn't even get that much right.

He wasn't alright, he wasn't anywhere, he was unmoored and drowning and he couldn't put his mind back together the way it used to be. He didn't know how to answer Thor, but Thor deserved something. He'd been so happy about the water. He'd been glad to see Loki drinking it. And then Loki had turned it into rage and thrown it all up.

"Water? Please?" he whispered. Would that be enough? He couldn't manage more.

Thor was holding him now, tipping Loki's exhausted and aching body forward to lean against his broad chest. The warmth felt good because Loki was _so cold_.

"Will you let me see to your wounds?"

He could do that, he thought. It would be hard to drink the water that he was so desperately thirsty for, if his lips were still bleeding. So he nodded and let Thor lift him out of the glass shower. Stark was silent but still there, and Loki wanted to pretend he wasn't.

"If you'll allow me to tend to him first, then I will tell you everything," Thor said to Stark, ruining Loki's ability to ignore him. "I am sorry that you had to deal with all this. I fell asleep by accident, and I—"

"Hey, do what you've gotta do. I'll be in the study down the hall." Stark looked twitchy and uncomfortable.

Loki wanted to needle him, he wanted to say, "what's wrong, you can't handle one sick madman?" but he didn't, because he _wasn't_ mad, and besides he couldn't speak right now because his lips hurt. He couldn't remember why they hurt. Wasn't it something . . . Brokk. Brokk had taken up Eitri's big bone awl and sewn Loki shut, trapped him inside where he couldn't get out and Father would never hear him screaming . . .

* * *

Tony hadn't had too much trouble believing that Loki had finally gone over the edge and was totally mad, not after the way he turned into a jibbering wreck and smashed up the bathroom. He'd seemed to calm down when Thor showed up, which was kind of unexpected considering that last time he'd seen the brothers things had been a little tense. But hey, no more crazy guy throwing things and crying, Tony could live with that.

It seemed to basically confirm the crazy factor when Thor _carried_ Loki into the room, with the dark-haired brother whimpering and trying to do disturbing things to his mouth again. Thor dropped Loki into one of the smooth leather chairs, and Tony wanted to protest. Loki looked kind of gross and he'd been puking all over the place not too long ago, that was _not_ a thing Tony wanted on his nice chairs—but, well. He'd feel like a huge asshole if he said that to some crying panicky crazy person and his clearly exhausted and overwhelmed caretaker. It wasn't like Tony couldn't afford new chairs if necessary; he could always claim re-upholstering the chairs as part of the insurance settlement (yes, of course he had disaster insurance on The Tower, god who wouldn't get disaster insurance).

Well, wasn't this just surreal? Tony caught Bruce's eyes and thought Bruce was feeling the same bewildered amusement he was. Tony was always a just-go-with-it kind of guy, but this was pushing it. Two weeks ago, they'd been shipping an angry god back to his own damn planet to get a royal spanking from his father the even-better god. And now somehow they were all back here, and the damn floor wasn't even fixed yet because the insurance company was surprisingly stubborn against his wheedling for a good contractor instead of the one they were willing to pay, so there was still a Loki-shaped hole in the other room—it probably wouldn't be a good idea to let Loki see that. The "bag of cats" metaphor was taking on a disturbingly literal meaning, with the way the guy was hissing and clawing.

"So . . ." he said slowly, then he got up and went to the bar to pour everybody a drink, because if there was a time for a drink it was when super villains went off their rocker and cried in your shower. He tried to figure out how to ask, then decided to keep it simple. "What in _actual fuck_?" He made sure to ask in a polite tone, infuse this thing with a level of civility that he honestly thought should be admirable. People should admire him for not freaking the fuck out right now.

"I wasn't told something I should have known," Thor answered. Well, if you could call that an answer. The gladness with which he took his drink from Tony and took a deep slug, that spoke volumes all by itself. Tony tried to give a drink to Loki, too, because why the hell not? Thor snatched it out of his hand, looking alarmed. "I don't think that would be wise, he hasn't eaten in weeks—"

"What, weeks, seriously?"

Loki was curling in on himself in the chair and silently attempting to tear a new hole in his face. Yeah, Tony could see it, the god/alien/whatever was looking a little gaunt.

"Talk," Tony commanded, not even caring that Thor was a god or alien or whatever. This was his house, he could command.

And Thor did. He explained the whole story, starting with Brokk the dwarf and the imprisonment and mouth-sewing—and seriously, _what the actual fuck_?—and then explaining how the muzzle had sent Loki on a downward spiral that had brought him so low even Asgard found him too pathetic to punish. Tony tried, he tried _really hard_ to not feel anything about Loki spending three days trapped in a nightmare in a prison cell, but it didn't work. There were feelings, sympathetic ones. Yes, this was the guy who'd thrown him out a window—and tried to take over the world, can't forget about that—but it was kind of hard to think of him that way right now. What with Thor, his brother who so clearly loved him, sitting there looking like the embodiment of guilt and agony. Nobody could emote like a god. Or alien. Or whatever.

Speaking of guilt, this whole thing was starting to smell fishy. And not just because it had obviously been a while since Loki had bathed. There was way more to this story, like why nobody had stormed the dwarves castle/whatever to save Loki when he was a kid getting his mouth sewn up, and possible wars with other planets be damned, and also why Thor was here acting like everything that had happened was his fault.

Tony looked at Bruce again, looking for confirmation that something was suspicious. The two of them were getting scary-good at reading each other, because Bruce was already looking at him and nodding. But the guy was showing all the classic symptoms of needing a distraction, stat: twisting his hands, tilting his head, staring down at his feet. He was feeling really on-edge and Tony didn't need any more god-shaped holes in his floor—or his life, really—thanks very much.

"Okay," he said, going for the fake cheerful thing that always seemed to work. "I say first things first. To me, first thing is Loki is actually starving himself to death, and we don't want that, do we? Well, Thor wouldn't want that, anyway. So let's move this to the kitchenette—I just have a kitchenette on this level, the big one's upstairs, but anyway—Bruce and I were eating when Loki showed up, so the stuff's out—hey, do you guys even do hummus? There's plenty, we've got veggies and cheese and stuff. The good doctor here makes me eat sometimes, but he never said it couldn't be finger food or that I had to _stop_ working while I was eating . . ."

By now, he'd grabbed Loki by the arm and hauled him to his feet. Even after hearing everything and seeing Loki being all miserable and pathetic, Tony kind of expected Loki to attack him. No magic and he was weak as a kitten, but Tony had thought maybe he'd call him a pitiful mortal and kick him in the shins or something. Maybe even go feral and try to bite his face off. Instead, Loki was just sort of gaping at him and trying to follow Tony when he tugged him down the hall. He looked dizzy and dazed, but he came obediently along.

"So, guy, you're _with_ me right now, right? You know where you are, all that jazz?"

Loki didn't do anything affirmative like nod or say yes or anything helpful, but he was looking Tony in the eyes, so that probably meant yes. Tony was probably supposed to feel privileged, he got the feeling even being acknowledged was a big step in Loki's terrified-of-everything state. He would work on feeling privileged, because right now it was just weird.

"Great. So you're really not doing so hot, right now, and you really need to eat. Believe me, I wouldn't exactly cry at your funeral, but Thor would and I'm helping out because Thor's a good guy and I like him, plus you aren't actively doing anything wrong. The point is, have a seat, eat something."

He pushed Loki in the direction of the chair he'd been sitting in earlier. Bruce's laptop was still open on the other side of the table, and the rest of the thing was papered with design sketches and notes that Tony had been working on. Their food was just sort of wedged in wherever the sketches would allow.

Loki was staring at the table like he was overwhelmed, and then he started furiously scrubbing at his lips with the back of his hand.

"Okay, no, don't do that," Tony yelped, grabbing his wrist to stop him. His really, really _thin _wrist. God, could he be any more skinny? He was amazed that Loki wasn't fighting him, and so was Thor, judging by the look on his face where he stood in the doorway. "Look, your mouth is _fine_, there's nothing wrong, I _checked_, okay? Here, try this cheese, it's cured in wine, it's amazing." Not willing to wait for Loki to have a full-blown panic attack again, Tony just picked the cheese up and shoved it into Loki's mouth. Bruce was right beside Thor, and he made a strangled nose that was probably an aborted warning against dealing with insanity that way. But Bruce shut up, because Loki was chewing and swallowing, looking rather shocked but eating it anyway. He looked oddly like a chastened little kid when he reached for the bowl of olives but cocked his head at Tony like he was waiting for permission.

"Go, yeah, knock yourself out."

Loki didn't go wild or anything, but he started plucking up whatever he could reach and putting something new in his mouth as soon as the previous bite was gone. Bread, cheese, olives, vegetables, hummus started rapidly disappearing. He chewed evenly and wiped his fingers on a paper towel that Tony grabbed for him, and that was just damn good table manners for a guy who . . . When _had_ he last eaten? Tony had totally given him a bourbon when they'd arrested him, because he was a man of his word, but as far as Tony knew, that was the last thing that had gone into Loki's mouth. How was he not _dead_? These Asgardians, they were some hearty people. But then, Tony knew that. The guy had already survived the Hulk using him to make snow angels in Tony's floor.

"Hey, fantastic," Tony said encouragingly, feeling accomplished and also hating himself for feeling accomplished. _Loki_, for fuck's sake. "You want something to drink? Want some tea? Bruce makes great chai."

Bruce glared at him, but Tony wasn't paying much attention, because Loki was doing that thing again. Tony asked a simple question, and he wasn't prepared for it to make Loki freeze up and look like he was about to get a needle to the lips again. He put his hand over his mouth and his eyes were welling up. Aw shit, crying again?

"I'm going to be sick," Loki whispered.

Oh, scratch that, puking again. On his sketches this time, too. What a total waste of good food. Thor had been hanging back in the doorway looking afraid to so much as breathe, but now he took a step forward. Too slow. Bruce was already there.

"No, you're not, you're going to be okay," he said, using his soothing-doctor voice. Tony loved the soothing-doctor voice, unless Bruce was using it to coax him out of the lab and get some sleep, because then it was just devious. "You ate too fast, that's all," he said, dragging a chair around to sit beside Loki. "You've got to keep that down, because you need that. Try breathing with me, okay? Big deep breath in, okay, good, now let it out slowly. You can relax, that's good. Okay, breathe in again. Tony, can you get some water?"

Tony was pretty sure he should be upset about this, about getting ordered around by his houseguest on behalf on the guy who'd _trashed_ said house, but he was feeling rather calm and he'd really rather not analyze what that said about him. At least not right now, because right now he was busy trying to analyze everything that was striking him as very, very weird about Loki. This guy was a damn prince, right? Beloved brother of Thor, pampered member of royalty, and suddenly he'd gotten a bug up his ass about taking over a planet his brother was fond of? And then just completely losing it when he got punished for that? Different strokes for different folks and all, it wasn't like Tony knew anything about Asgard, but this just didn't add up.

"_He's adopted."_

Tony remembered it being said as sort of a joke, on the helicarrier. It didn't seem that funny right now. Something had obviously gone wonky. Maybe he wasn't as beloved and pampered as "prince" implied.

Loki was sipping the water, listening to Bruce and breathing with him, so he wasn't throwing up. That was good, that one design he'd been sketching for some heat-seeking arrows to give to Agent Barton was pretty killer and wiping half-digested olives off the paper was pretty much on the bottom of Things Tony Stark Will Ever Do.

Wow, not good, maybe he wasn't going to puke, but he sure as hell wasn't okay. He was slumping down onto the table and moaning, sweat beading on his forehead. He was shivering so hard Tony could see it where he was standing.

Thor stepped close and put a hand on Loki's back. "Thank you for . . . You have been a great help. But he is still unwell, and I need to take him home. If any issues arise, this cell phone device—"

"Whoa, hey, no," Tony said, catching Thor by the elbow before he could follow through on his attempt to pick Loki up. "Thor, buddy. We're not done talking."

* * *

Thor had felt as though he'd been doing nothing _but_ thinking since his own brief banishment. But he'd kept his own confidence and had only himself to reason with, and it was hard after Loki fell from the bridge to be fair and honest with himself when he was grieving. These past few weeks had seen grief turn to anger and then quickly to guilt.

Tony and Bruce stripped everything down and made Thor see what was there. For the first time, he felt like he knew where his guilt came from and how much he really ought to bear.

"You thought it was _funny_ when your friend kicked the shit out of him?" Bruce repeated, looking ill. "I get that you guys all made up later, and I get that by your rules him learning how to fight was a good thing, but he was _twelve_, Thor, you can't . . ." And only a minute later, "Your dad mocked him in front of everyone for studying too much? That's just, wow, self-esteem issues in the making." Bruce ducked his head then and stared at his shoes and breathed very deeply, so Tony took up where he'd left off.

Tony was even less forgiving. "How is it nobody thought he should fucking know he was adopted from another fucking planet? That's a thing you should tell a guy _before_ he finds out on his own!"

Loki slept through all this. His fever had sunk its claws in deep, and his body curled up on the sofa with his head beside Thor's leg was burning with heat. Thor found that his hands constantly touched Loki's hair or brushed against his clothes, seeking some kind of reassurance. Looking at it now, Loki's childhood had not been easy and Father's way of overlooking him was only half of it. Loki had always felt as though he was an outsider. Learning he was a Frost Giant had just been the final word. Thor stroked Loki's shoulder and wondered how often Loki had pretended to be happy just to keep Thor happy.

Bruce frowned deeply when Thor told of his Warriors coming to Earth to help him find his way back, killing some of Thor's happiness at remembering how his friends loved him. "Your tribune put him on the throne. _They_ did. It was totally aboveboard, Loki was next in line. And then everybody acted like he'd staged a coup. That seems . . . unfair . . ."

Thor felt shamed and embarrassed on behalf of the Warriors even though he felt that the two scientists weren't understanding the whole thing. That they knew Loki had lied about Thor's exile. That they had acted on his behalf out of friendship far more than as a rebellion against Loki's leadership. He didn't interrupt though, and continued to tell Tony and Bruce the story. He told them everything, because he _wanted_ these feelings, he wanted to have it all become clear to him, so he'd know how they'd gotten here. He never wanted things to be that way again.

"I'm sorry," Tony blurted out halfway through the telling of the battle he and Loki had fought, "can we go back? To the part where he killed his evil birth father who abandoned him, to protect his emotionally distant adoptive father? I'm kind of still stuck there, sorry. No, wait, I think I figured it out, keep going."

Tony allowed him to finish telling of it all: the destruction wrought on Jotunheim, the battle between the brothers, and the destruction of the Bifrost, and how they'd both hung over the edge with Odin all that stood between the two of them and the dark abyss. Thor had to pause to collect himself because what came next hurt to remember, and he knew it would hurt even more to say it aloud. That was when Tony spoke again.

"He said _no_? Are you—are you fucking serious right now? His obviously unstable son was hanging there into space and he couldn't just _lie_ and say _yes_ and get him _back onto the fucking ground_ before telling him he was wrong? You are _so_ lucky he didn't just kill himself."

Thor stared at him bleakly.

"Oh, shit," Tony said dumbly. "But he—" He gestured to Loki, who shivered and burned and was clearly not dead.

"He let go," Thor said softly. "I tried to— but he— fell."

"Wow, hey, that is just icing on the shit cake. He's suicidal. Swell. Granted, your dad isn't as bad as some other people's dads, but— "

"Do not speak against my father when you do not know him," Thor snarled, affronted, and tried not to see the desperate twisting of Bruce's hands and the way he hung his head and took shallow breaths. But even he could not deny that Odin's rejection had been ill-timed. It might have been better to get them to safety before expressing his disappointment. "Loki, it seems, fell among the Chitauri then. Time can be strange and take odd paths when you travel between worlds, but I think he must have been among them for some weeks, perhaps months."

"So that brings us to the part where he tries to take over here. It's safe to say that he'd already mostly lost his mind by that point. And we have to ask ourselves what he was really trying to do, here. It's like he was just taking Thor's favourite toy and screaming for attention."

Tony and Thor, who'd been glaring at each other in rising anger, both turned to Bruce in surprise.

"I mean, obviously we don't really know," Bruce said more hesitantly. "But to me, it looks like he just gave up on Odin and stopped wanting anything from him, but he still cared about you, Thor. There was still some hope that you loved him, so he came here and started jumping up and down and shouting 'I'm over here, I'm still important, please look at me' and just begging you to care."

Thor had bowed his head to the tribune, he'd bowed his head to Nick Fury, he'd listened to a host of insults against his father and brother and himself. He'd felt guilt and embarrassment and abject terror. He had good reason to think he'd already hit his lowest point. Now, he found, _this_ was his lowest point.

"And to answer him, I set the Avengers loose on him, scolded him as though he were an errant child and I was much wiser, and then finished it all by restraining him with the one instrument he truly feared." Thor dropped his head into his hands and for some time could not speak or lift his eyes. The other two were oddly quiet, now. "But if that was so, if what he wanted was my attention, why would he not just agree to come home with me, at the beginning?"

Tony snorted. "Home? You really think Asgard feels like home to him?"

"If not Asgard, then where?" Thor asked in bewilderment. Surely the Chitauri had not made him feel so welcome . . .

"I think that's really the point, Thor," Bruce said softly. "Part of the reason he got so frightened he lost his mind. He doesn't think he has a home. Anywhere. He has no family anymore and no place to feel safe."

Thor was dumbfounded. "He has me."

Bruce frowned deeply at that. Why? But then Bruce's eyes were dropping down to Loki, so Thor looked down to see why.

Loki was awake.

"You have me, brother," Thor said quietly, wiping sweat-damp hair out of Loki's unfocused eyes. "I will spend a lifetime doing penance for the way I treated you, if you want it. I never meant you to feel . . ." He wasn't sure he could even name the way Loki had felt. "I love you," he said instead. "The rest can wait until you feel well enough for it."

That caused Loki to moan miserably and turn his head to hide his face. "So hot," he rasped.

"Is he, um, human? I mean, you said he's mortal now, and I was wondering how medication would effect him. Aspirin would make him feel a little better, at least help with the fever, assuming it worked on him."

Thor remembered the thing called aspirin. Erik Selvig had taken several little white pills after their night of drinking. "Yes, that might be good."

"But I don't know," Bruce frowned. "I don't think it's a good idea to give him anything medicinal without having at least a reasonable expectation of how it will effect him. I have no way of knowing whether his physiological makeup is similar enough to ours to—"

"Well, what are we calling reasonable?" Tony interrupted, sitting forward intently in a move Thor recognized. The two of them got like this. Science.

Bruce spoke. "Based on Thor's experience here as an exile, he probably still has enviable physical endurance and strength, but he does need regular sleep and sustenance to maintain peak health, so—"

"But how do we know that wasn't just Thor's physiology, based on his size and the shape he's in?" Tony interrupted. "I mean, Loki isn't even from the same planet, so there's no telling if his physiology resembles Thor's."

"No, no, that's a good point, but Odin's exile was meant to put him into a human mortal form, so I would assume that would cancel out any differences there might have been between the two in an unaltered state."

"Probably," Tony frowned. "I know he's still got an incredible amount of stamina, he'd have to, remember I gave him bourbon when we captured him—"

"Which I still can't _believe_ you did, by the way—"

"—and it didn't even seem to mellow him out, even after two days without sleep and the fact that you had just pounded him into the floor. Which is why I feel like if we're going to try medication it would have to be kind of a lot."

"Thor, I wish you knew more about what they gave you during your exile, while you were in the hospital, we could—"

"No," Tony suddenly snapped. "Because you know what? The last thing we should be doing is trying to use Thor as a guideline for Loki. _That hasn't worked very well so far for anyone_."

And suddenly the room was full of such a heavy silence that it sounded like a faint annoying buzz in Thor's ears. None of them wanted to look at each other.

Loki shifted, moaning softly. His hand clutched into Thor's leg when he was racked by a violent shivering. Thor put a hand on Loki's back and found his brother wriggling closer to be held, deliriously seeking comfort in his distress. That was surprising, but not unwelcome.

"Well, we can't exactly take him to urgent care," Tony said flatly.

Loki was listless and sweaty and bleary-eyed and it was making Thor feel rather desperate. "Thirsty," he muttered.

"Shit, yeah, fluids, fluids are good, I'll get on that," Tony responded, leaping to his feet. "I've got Gatorade, that couldn't hurt, I'll get that."

That left Thor staring thoughtfully at Bruce, who was staring thoughtfully at Loki, who was making tiny moaning sounds and hiding his face in Thor's leg.

"Tony is an exceedingly strange man, even for a person of Midgard," Thor said carefully. "I'm sure he has a reason for aiding Loki that makes sense to him, but I fear to ask. However, I cannot help but wonder why you would also be willing to help him."

Bruce was twisting his hands together and looking nervous. Thor found it rather entertaining that this little man could turn into such a creature as the Hulk, but he would rather not have that happen now, not with his brother here so ill and defenseless. He almost retracted the question.

"I . . . yeah, it is. Because no matter what happened, I don't think it gave Loki an excuse to do what he did here. I think I might be able to understand, but that doesn't mean I can condone the death and destruction. I shouldn't be okay with this. The thing is, I'm not sure I'm looking at the man who did all that. I guess I think it would be unfair to punish him when he's not in his right mind. We can't be sure he really knows what he did."

Thor was grateful for all his friends here, but he felt very grateful indeed that among his friends he counted Bruce Banner. The things that Bruce did to avoid becoming the Hulk had made him a patient, compassionate, careful man. Thor was shocked to find in himself a desire to be more like that. Of course, it only made sense that Bruce felt he must pardon such actions. He more than most understood what it meant to truly lose control.

"So I had an interesting thought," Tony said, entering as abruptly as he'd departed. "Those aliens, the Chitty Chitty Bang Bangs or whatever— their leader was talking right into Loki's brain, I think I remember hearing that."

"Yes."

"And the leader was also the one who gave Loki that staff, the one he was using to do mind control, the thing that got Hawkeye?"

"Oh my god, Tony," Bruce said suddenly, sitting up straight with wide eyes.

"What?" Thor was mystified, and he hunched protectively over Loki.

"I was just wondering how much of that stuff Loki actually did voluntarily."

Thor just stared at him in shock.

"I mean, it's just a theory, just throwing it out there, but there is a possibility that Loki was being manipulated, I mean, there was an alien in his brain. Loki, buddy, do you—"

"No," Thor said fiercely. "You cannot ask him now. If you do, he'll lose his mind again, he'll harm himself. Right now, he needs that drink more than we need answers."

Tony just shrugged and came forward to hand him a strange blue-tinted beverage. Loki had started shake, and Thor feared they'd already lost him. He hadn't thought Loki was coherent enough to pay attention. "Shhh, it's all right," he murmured, smoothing back Loki's damp, greasy hair again. "Don't think of it now. You're safe. You're with me. Can you drink this?"

He held up Loki's head and Loki drank eagerly. He didn't stop shaking.

"Don't give him the whole thing at once," Bruce said. "His stomach is already upset from the food, he might not be able to keep it down." He stood up. "I need to go for a walk."

Tony opened his mouth, but Bruce held up a hand.

"No, I _need_ to go for a walk. I really do. Thor, I . . . good luck, that's all I can say."

Bruce was twisting fingers tight into his hair as he hurried out of the room, and Thor wondered if something had set him off or if he'd just been holding himself together admirably well this entire time.

"Will he . . .?"

"Probably not," Tony said, and he looked strangely disappointed. "He has no sense of adventure, I swear. Anyway, he did good staying in here this long, I honestly thought he'd give up a while ago. Loki's not the only one with daddy issues, you know? Anyway, it's getting late. If you guys want to stay here I can—"

"No, but you have my gratitude," Thor answered automatically, even though he was rather reeling with shock that the invitation had been given. What reason could Tony possibly have for offering so much hospitality? Thor considered him a friend, but he hadn't thought that would extend to his brother. So far, Tony had been gracious. He found himself afraid to ask Tony to explain.

"Because he looks like a sad half-drowned kitten," Tony said.

"I do not think I understand—"

"You're wondering why I'm being nice to Loki. It's because he looks like a sad little kitten you pulled out of a gutter, that's why. Fix him up and make him all scary and villainous again, would you? It creeps me out when he's all cuddly like that."

Thor glanced down and found that Loki had fallen into that restless half-sleep again, his hand splayed on Thor's leg as if to hold him in place.

"I should take him home," Thor said. It was jarring to say that word and mean the flat a few miles away. He needed to get used to that.

"Yeah, let me get you a cab," Tony said, flipping out his cell phone. "I'd get you my driver, but he's not on duty. Hang on, I think I still have a monthly tab with this cab company , I should have cancelled that when I stopped being a mess in public all the time . . ."

Thor realized Tony meant to foot the bill for their ride and tried to protest, but Tony waved it away and kept up a steady stream of chatter while he was guiding them back to the ground floor entrance.

"Hey, man, keep us updated, okay? Let us know if you need any help."

"I shall," Thor said, feeling warm and somehow less weary. He may not totally understand why they were willing, but he understood now that he had good friends in these two men. He felt closer to them now. He decided this meant that next they spoke, he was allowed to ask if Tony had merely invited Bruce as a guest or if he planned to make him his life's companion. An unusual match, to be sure, but it would not be the first time Thor had seen two shield brothers choose their own company over that of women.

Once safely in the cab and en route, Thor began thinking of all the things that needed to be done. He still hadn't even called Jane. But first things first, as Tony would say: the first thing he needed to do was get a lock for the door that Loki couldn't open.

* * *

"Yo, buddy, you okay?"

He heard Tony calling to him as he walked closer to the laboratory. Bruce gripped the table and tried to breathe. He'd come down here because this room was the best and most welcoming room he'd ever been in. He'd thought it would keep him calm.

His hands were turning green.

"Bruce?"

"Okay," he breathed. "Okay. Okay."

Tony stopped in the doorway. "Oh, shit."

"Get out."

He was usually so polite. He liked to be. He liked that the monster inside him couldn't dictate his personality, that when he was Bruce he was respectful and patient and reasonable . . . But The Other Guy was _right there_ and he wanted _out_.

"You're looking a little off, buddy, why don't we—"

"Get out!" he screamed. He was afraid, he was so goddamn afraid of hurting the only person left in the world who seemed to give a shit about him, he had to get him out of here— oh, god, the equipment, all Tony's equipment and the experiments they'd both been running . . . "No! No, I have to go, I have to . . ."

He stumbled. His muscles were locking up. Tony caught him, held onto him, Tony had such terribly strong hands.

"I've got a room, dude. I use it to test out updates on my repulsors and thrusters. I was gonna say let's get you in there. Damage should be minimal if we can keep you in there."

"No," he gasped, green-tinged fingers tight in Tony's clothes. "I'm not letting him out. Not in your house, not with you here—"

"I'm not worried. He likes me," Tony stated plainly, helping Bruce to a chair and plunking him down. "You sure? I'd rather get you down there now than find out he's coming out without your permission in this lab."

Bruce sucked in air and nodded. He could do this.

"Okay," Tony said, wearing a smile.

"Okay."

This was so far from being okay. Why hadn't he run away yet? Everybody ran away. He shouldn't have brought Bruce here to begin with, and now he wouldn't even leave him alone for his own safety. Tony was crazy. He seriously needed help.

"Ahhh, no," Bruce moaned, gripping his knees as he was reminded.

"Why don't you tell me what set you off? Maybe I can help."

"What set me off?" he repeated in disbelief. "Are you not— Tony, that man blew up half of this city, and he is legitimately crazy. Thor is not capable of dealing with that. Thor doesn't even understand what mental illness _is_. And he's convinced that Loki isn't going to do it again, but we don't have any idea— Tony, he needs to be seen to by professionals. The consequences of allowing Thor to handle this himself are . . ."

"Oh, I know. That's why he's here. Fury's not stupid, you know, he would have stuck Loki in a cell and called in a team of scientists if he thought he could get away with it. The problem is, Thor is a god. Or alien, or whatever. He's going to do what he wants to do, and if we don't let him, he'll go somewhere else. This is containment, Bruce, and we're in charge of it. Maybe we didn't get an official order, but that's probably because Thor and Loki's presence on Earth is not official, either. You, me, and probably Rogers. He sent them here because he's counting on us to keep it under control. We don't control it, then Thor moves his brother to a world where we have no jurisdiction. It's better to keep him here."

Bruce gaped at him. He was right, God help them. Thor's only obligation to them was as a guest on their planet. If they told him he couldn't stay, and he took his brother to a hostile planet, things could get worse.

"What are we supposed to do?"

Tony shrugged. "Hell if I know. At least I got him to eat, right?"

"Yeah, let's explore why he listens to you."

"Really? Let's not, that's definitely something I'd like _not_ to explore. You know what I would like, though? I'd love to get fantastically drunk and pretend that today did not happen. Sound good?"

Bruce looked at his hands. He'd relaxed them without noticing. The green tinge had gone. He felt wrung out and the collar of his shirt was soaked with sweat, but he was okay.

"Fine. One drink, Tony. Then we're both going to bed."

"I always knew marriage would cramp my style," Tony pouted. "Baby, let's stay up and watch the sunrise just this once?"

"You are such a creep. You told me that I'm supposed to make you stop when you're out of control."

"You're great. I'm all distracted from my alcoholism with this branch of science I've never studied before, it's fantastic. I need you in my life, baby."

"You are so lucky Pepper is not here to hear this."

"Pepper loves you."

"Just shut up and get me some gin," Bruce muttered, ducking his head. Tony was annoying and needy and audacious, and somehow he'd decided that they were friends and Bruce wasn't allowed to argue. Not that he wanted to, exactly. He wasn't totally convinced yet that he wasn't having an elaborate dream. A place to work and somebody who believed in him, those were things he'd been wanting for so long that maybe he was delusional. Bruce had been through a lot, he was crazy enough to dream up a friend like Tony.

. . . Okay, so what had happened tonight was too unbelievable to be a dream. Loki and then Thor, that was pretty convincing evidence that this was real. Bruce maybe wasn't happy about suddenly being saddled with the responsibility of keeping a psychotic alien from destroying New York (again), but that also meant his safe haven was real. Tony and Pepper and the way they'd just started acting like he'd lived here all along, that was real. He could live with this whole Loki thing if it meant he got to keep the rest.

* * *

Loki slept for nearly two days, waking only to beg for something to drink before falling back under. Mindful of Tony's advice, Thor gave him what were called "sports drinks" sometimes instead of water. He tried to talk Loki into eating again with no success, although he was exceedingly grateful that Loki had experienced a lucid spell long enough to bathe himself. While Loki was taking a shower, Thor went out and discovered a sandwich shop on the corner of the block that had delicious offerings. He had since availed himself of their wares several times.

Thor slept a great deal, too. He still fretted, but it was easier to relax now that they were away from home. It helped that a great and noble lady named Pepper had come at Tony's behest, arranged for the delivery of another bed and the installation of a lock on the door that needed a key to open, even on the inside. She had given Thor a map of the city with locations of interest marked in bright colours, everything from the nearest grocery store to her favourite theatre. She had both grace and command, and Tony Stark was a lucky man.

When he wasn't sleeping, he often talked on his cell phone with Jane. She spoke of how her research was beginning to bear fruit, speculated that perhaps he would be able to visit her when Loki's health improved, and told him about her new colleagues. It was the most painful happiness Thor could imagine. This was not his world, for all that he loved it, and he wasn't going to stay forever. She was bright and daring and wonderful, and Thor could not keep her. So he would lie down and put the phone close to his ear and just listen to her voice for as long as he could.

He slept in the bed that Lady Pepper had arranged for, but never for long. Loki would have wild fever dreams, would gasp and cry out and mutter nonsense, and often when Thor went to him to calm him he found himself held fast in Loki's frightened grip. So he would stay, stroking his hair or murmuring nonsense, and eventually fall asleep at Loki's side.

Thor found himself worrying more and more, not about the improvement of Loki's health, but what it might lead to. Loki clung to him now but Thor was beginning to think it was a childish response to being sick and confused and it might not last when he felt better. What if he _had_ meant the things he'd said a few weeks ago? He . . .

There was a scar under his shirt that no one had seen, from something he had not told anyone. Loki had stabbed him. Loki had _stabbed_ him. And then he'd used a knife. Oh, yes, the words had hurt, far worse than the blade. How twisted Loki's reality had become, Thor had thought, that first night when they'd met again, when he'd fought with Tony and Steve. That was when he'd known that something had broken in Loki's mind, and he'd tried not to be hurt by words spoken by a madman. He'd thought, if only he could get him home . . . But then after everything Thor could do, Loki had stabbed him.

He was distracted from this melancholy by Loki gasping and whimpering at his side.

"Wake now, you're all right," Thor said, jostling his arm a little.

Loki was awake, his eyes frightened. "Hurts," he mumbled.

"Tell me," Thor said, and thought of the aspirin. He'd found some and brought it home, but hadn't wanted to risk using it after Bruce and Tony made it seem so complicated. But if Loki was in so much pain— he started get up. Loki flinched. Thor sank back down, his chest tight. "Brother? What are you afraid of?"

"You hurt me," he whispered.

Thor had vowed, to himself, waiting on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s flying fortress, that he would not allow things to get out of control like they had on the Bifrost. No matter what he had to do, he and Loki would not fight like that again. He wouldn't hurt him so, now that he knew how far from reality Loki had strayed.

But then he had. He'd unleashed his strength, and all he remembered was being so _angry_ . . .

"You hurt me, first," he muttered. It was not an excuse, not in his mind, but truth be told he was still angry, and he needed to be brave enough to admit that it wasn't anger but _hurt_.

Loki's eyes flashed, and Thor knew that this was a mistake. Loki wasn't ready for this, he was going to lose him again—

"You said I threw you," he blurted out, then turned his face away to hide it. He hadn't meant to say it. He had tried so hard to forget those words, but they wouldn't leave him, and every time it was like the knife punched into his skin again. "You said— a lot of things, but— you said I _threw_ you off the bridge . . ."

"I never said— did I?" Loki closed his eyes and groaned, and his fingers found the abused patch of hair at his temple and tugged. "It— I— things are not— not always the same—"

"Don't," Thor said sternly, trying to untangle his fingers before he made the bald patch larger.

Loki caught hold of his hand, tight enough to hurt. He looked up. "I'm sorry. I don't know— things are out of order— I know I didn't mean that. You tried to save me. I know you did. I— I can't—" He stopped and curled in on himself.

This was the most he'd spoken so far, and Thor was simply glad they'd gotten as far as they had. "Loki, it's . . ." What could he say? "It's going to be all right."

He stayed at Loki's side in case he tried to harm himself. He thought his brother's mind had strayed, and was startled when he spoke again.

"My mind is, it's out of order, and I-I-I-I'm trying, but somebody broke in, they moved things . . ." He dug his fingers into Thor's leg. "Don't leave me," he whispered. "You should. I've hated you and-and there was so much hate, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't _breathe_, I couldn't think, I just needed— I don't _know_, I don't know who I am and I can't fix it and if you leave me, I-I-I—"

"I won't," Thor said, hearing his own voice crack. His chest hurt. He shifted, put his hand behind Loki's head and brought them close so he could catch those tortured eyes with his and keep him there. "You are Loki of Asgard, and you are my beloved brother. You have strayed far, but you are coming back to me. I can wait a thousand years, if you but call me brother again."

"Stop," Loki said, his breath hitching, closing his eyes. "There is no forgiveness for all of this—"

"Loki, I have thought long on it and I know now what part I played in your pain, the part we all did. If there is no forgiveness for you, there would be none for me, either. Is that what you want? To never forgive this, to be trapped in this misunderstanding forever?"

"No, I don't—stop, stop it—"

"I blame myself for all of this. I know that you had little choice about what you did to Midgard, once you fell among the Chitauri, and it is my fault, mine and Father's, that you fell at all, so I—"

"_Stop_!" Loki screamed, and scrambled up, away from him. He clutched at his temples and scratched at his mouth. "Don't— I don't want to forget— let me out! I have to get out!"

He threw himself at the door which would not open for him. Thor could not in good conscience release him when he was so clearly on the verge of breaking down. There was no way of telling what he might do, to himself or others. But it felt like nothing had ever hurt quite so much as hearing Loki beg him, tears streaming down his face, just to get away from him.

"Thor, _please_. I can't— please."

His fingers were digging into the wood like he could prise the door open. His chin was streaked with red blood. Thor couldn't stand it. He got the key and opened the door.

"Don't . . ." he said as Loki fled. He didn't know what he meant. Don't cry? Don't hurt anyone? Don't leave? Don't blow anything up? Don't give up? He went back to his bed and sank down onto it with heavy limbs. They could hardly make any effort to move forward if speaking of it sent Loki into such a frenzy. This uneasy way they were coping together without any understanding was little more than a temporary truce and it couldn't last. But the next step eluded him. _Was_ there a next step, or was there only waiting? Waiting for Loki seemed almost fitting . . . Loki had been forced to wait on his pleasure often enough, and maybe it was Thor's turn. He just didn't know what he was waiting for.

He'd told it true: he could wait forever if the reward was to have his brother back. If, at the end of this, Loki drove another knife into his side and ran, the knowledge that Thor had done everything he could would be no comfort.

* * *

"Sir?"

"Yes, Jarvis?" Tony asked blearily, barely remembering to cut power to his soldering torch before looking away from his work and toward the flashing screen.

"There is a potential security threat—"

"Oh goddamnit," Tony cut the AI off. "Bring up video." He already had a pretty good idea of what he was about to see, and sure enough, there he was in all his deranged and malnourished glory. He was tempted to ignore it, but somebody was bound to notice and possibly publish photos of the crazy man crying in front of Tony Stark's tower. "Where's Bruce?"

"Master Banner retired to bed two hours and thirty-six minutes ago—"

"Okay, yeah, knew that—really, thirty-six minutes?— well fuck. Could you wake him— no wait, never mind, don't wake him," Tony said, remembering that Bruce had pulled an all-nighter last night and his beauty rest was a way higher priority than Tony's. "Aaaargh, I am too old and tired for this crap. Just . . . Turn on the soft lighting and turn up the heater in the den."

Thank God for Cap, though. At least this time Tony had a slightly better idea of what he was dealing with.

He rode the elevator down and strode outside to greet his extremely-unwanted guest. He didn't bother with the preliminaries. He said, "You really need to stop doing this," and grabbed Loki by the arm and dragged him inside. "Is one of your problems with enclosed spaces? Because if you can't handle the elevator, you're taking the stairs by _yourself_."

Loki didn't answer, because apparently saying, "I had to, I'm sorry, I had to," over and over again was occupying all his attention right now. Well, whatever. Tony shoved him in the elevator and tried really hard not to think about what would happen if Loki got a weird flashback or something. He just banged his head against the wall and muttered to himself the whole time, though. Creepy, but not destroying Tony or his property, so that was okay.

"Yay, here we are, my floor," Tony said wearily. Just because Cap had gotten him the information he needed didn't exactly mean Tony was thrilled by it. "I'm calling your brother, by the way, because he'll freak out if he can't find you. I thought Pepper was taking care of getting new locks, anyway, how the hell did you get loose?"

Yeah, no, Loki definitely wasn't capable of answering questions right now.

"I'm guessing that you're a lot more on top of things than you're pretending you are, since you managed to get the key off of him without him noticing. I mean, I assume he didn't notice, or he'd be hot on your heels. Ugh, and you come here, to me? I'm not your babysitter. Have I mentioned how unfair this is, yet? Because I hate repeating myself, but do you even know how much it pisses me off? You did some seriously messed up shit to my world and you shouldn't get to skip out on paying for that."

Tony dropped Loki onto the same sofa he'd slept on last time.

"I know."

Tony tried to pretend he wasn't having a freaking heart failure when Loki just randomly started talking like he was aware of things. When had he stopped having an episode and started listening?

"Huh, what, you're listening to me? You know?"

"I know that I have done—" He closed his eyes and gripped his hands into his knees. "I know that I must, as you put it, pay for that. I would be paying for it now if not for Thor."

"Yeah, and I think it's bullshit that you're taking advantage of him—"

"Are you so naïve?" Loki whispered, eyes still closed. "My only choice was whether to take my punishment from Asgard or from—from—from the Chitauri. I think I cannot be blamed for choosing Asgard. I did not look for mercy, only some guarantee that I would not be tortured to death. I didn't ask for—" He dropped his head into his hands and started yanking at his hair. "I— whatever Thor did, I could not have asked for it, I don't even know what it was, because I wasn't— I still can't—" He took a great, heaving breath and tried to calm himself down. "I will receive punishment for my deeds, Tony Stark, you may be sure of that. I care not how you might judge me for taking the opportunity I've been given to get my mind back first."

"You say that like someone took it," Tony said, because while they could speculate all day, Loki was the only one who could really tell them the truth about that. Assuming he would. Stupid assumption, and Tony wasn't exactly planning to just believe anything he said.

"Not to keep," Loki muttered. "Just to rifle through it and leave things a mess." When he looked up, he looked almost like he thought this was funny. "You are suspicious of me for being too honest with you, are you not? But I have no pride left. No secrets left." He let out a wild laugh. "I no longer even care. I, who for the sake of pride and secrets . . ." He started to sob.

"Oh, fantastic," Tony muttered. "_Stop that_."

"Why?" Loki demanded, still crying. "Aren't madmen allowed this?"

"Oh, so now you _are_ mad?" Tony asked innocently. "That's weird, I swore you said you weren't last time. Jarvis! Bring up the video of Loki's last visit—"

"_I don't know_!" Loki shrieked, so loud it made Tony's ears ring.

"Cancel that, Jarvis," Tony said after a long pause.

"You— how am I supposed to know— I _must_ be— I can't even remember some of the things I did, and I can't remember why, and it sickens me to try!"

"Oh, you could," Tony said, matter-of-factly. "You could remember if you tried. But if you did that, then you'd have to admit that you're ready to stand trial for it."

"They can hold the trial tomorrow, for all I care," Loki whispered. "I don't _care_ what they do to me, do you understand that?" he asked, his voice trembling with the possibility of crying again. "I doubt there is a just punishment for what I've done, but I will accept whatever they deem to be justice. It ought to be severe. If the horror I dealt was so great I cannot even recall it, then what is the point in waiting until I can?"

"Holy shit," Tony blurted out as he suddenly put this all together. Just like that, it all slotted into place. God, he really _had_ given Natasha everything when she'd interrogated him, and none of them had seen it because they were too busy dealing with the situation. _"Can you wipe out that much red?"_ Even with Chitauri fingers in his brain and Chitauri agenda to complete, he'd already been trying to apologize. "Holy shit, you're actually sorry, aren't you?"

The bleak expression spoke for itself.

"Oh my god. This is, like, not even what I thought it was. You _actually_ went off an emotional deep end and did stupid, stupid things, and you _actually_ regret them so much you're experiencing some kind of dissociative disorder. I mean, the whole creepy story about how those dwarf people tortured you as a kid should have clued me in to how psychologically damaged you are, but I am generally suspicious and especially so when it comes to the guy who used my house to stage an alien invasion. Holy _shit_."

Loki's hand immediately went to his mouth at the reminder.

"No, no, no," Tony chided him, gently slapping his hand away. "That is really awful, never do that. Look, are you even actually a bad person?"

"I'm a mass murderer, you fool," Loki whispered.

"See, that right there, that makes me think you're usually an okay guy, and wow. I mean, Thor loves you, but Thor fucking loves everyone. The thought that you might have once been a loveable person is really just . . . My mind? Blown."

Tony was not even capable of dealing with this. He'd been right on the money, in that he'd suspected the aliens of messing with him. That was why he'd given Cap a list of demands when he went for a meeting with Fury. They'd called him right away to give him the heads-up about Thor and Loki being in town, and he'd already been bored and pissy and was perfectly willing to get indignant. He'd gone storming into his meeting telling them how unfair it was to be given the responsibility of dealing with Loki without being given any warning or intel. He'd demanded whatever records S.H.I.E.L.D. had managed to create during the night they'd had him in custody. Then, of course, being a team player, he'd brought the results back to Tony and Bruce.

Yeah, the Capsicle was getting something nice for his birthday.

It seemed that Loki was suffering from a range of ailments, running the gamut from dehydration and malnutrition all the way to depression with tendencies toward self-harm and post-traumatic disorder with tendencies toward paranoia. Then there was that pesky one that had _really_ bothered Tony and that he hadn't wanted to believe. Possible dissociative fugue. Interestingly enough, they'd brought in the same person who'd done Hawkeye's psych eval after the mind-control, so S.H.I.E.L.D. had at least suspected the same thing Tony had.

Well, it's wasn't a full-on fugue or whatever, but Loki clearly was not okay with who he was.

"I am not even going to try to figure this out right now. And seriously, it's not like I can. I may be an expert in self-destructive tendencies but I have never actually studied psychology. Dude, you need a therapist, _badly_."

"I think I need to lie down," Loki mumbled.

Tony grimaced, because while he was getting his mind blown, Loki had started sweating and looking like he was going to throw up. He was so ridiculously thin and pale, and watching him whimper took Tony all the way back to feeling like he was looking at an abandoned kitten.

"You need a doctor, actually. I ran tests on all the blood you left in the bathroom. A couple of your injuries are infected. Also, have you eaten since you were here last? Yeah, that's obviously a big fat no. Anyway, the good thing about getting S.H.I.E.L.D.'s info on you is that it collaborated with mine. You might have a serious infection, but we can treat it, because you're a real boy now, Pinocchio. I figured there was no way we could just take you to a doctor, but that's okay because I have a ton of money to toss around and got the goods anyway, go me."

Loki was sort of just staring at him now.

"Drugs," Tony clarified. "Antibiotics, to be more precise. The downside is that somebody's got to dose you— oh, shit, I forgot, calling Thor. I'm going to call Thor now. Because _Thor_ is going to do this. I am not doing it."

"I'm—"

That was as far as Loki got, although presumably the rest of that sentence was supposed to be "_about to pass out_" because his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell onto the floor.

"I am not picking your sorry ass up," Tony muttered. He spent a minute just grimacing at the prone body on the floor. "Shit. Fine. I'll get you a blanket. God. Right, calling Thor now. Thor, who probably will need to have modern psychology explained to him. And probably also antibiotics and hypodermic needles. Ugh."

* * *

Bruce got concerned about Thor's gigantic hands and the fact that after Bruce's careful explanation, he still looked very confused . Which is how Bruce wound up jabbing a needle into Loki's ass, and how Tony wound up rubbing Bruce's shoulder in sympathy for having to do that, and how Thor wound up asking a really awkward question.

"Shield brothers and companions of what now?" Bruce asked in disbelief, as Tony cringed.

"Ohmygod, no, no, _absolutely no_, Bruce and I are _science bros_, okay? Science bros is what's going on here. Yeah, you don't get that, do you? It is a sacred bond, a brotherhood of curious minds, a pure—" and here Tony gave up on his interest in trying to speak all cool like Thor did. "Listen, dude, just _no_. Have you _met_ Pepper? I'd die with a stiletto heel jammed up my nose for keeping a gay lover on the side."

Suddenly struck by a thought, Tony whirled around and gave Bruce a wide-eyed look. "It is so _totally cool_ if you are actually gay, by the way, I just thought this whole thing where we don't dwell on each other's personal shit has been working really well for us so far. But yeah, just in case, that was not meant to sound derogatory. Just . . . I do not think of you that way, okay."

"Science bros," Bruce agreed mildly, fist-bumping him to put him out of his misery. "Thanks, by the way, but I . . . there's a girl. Well, there _was_ a girl."

"Nice. Oh my god, you shouldn't have told me that, I am totally going to interrogate you about this girl, and there will be weeks where you try to resist telling me but I am going to drag it out of you, you should have just told me you were gay. No, that wouldn't work, then I'd try to find you a boyfriend. I am an asshole, why do you hang out with me? Anyway, Thor, my man. You need to keep a better eye on your brother. You want me to knock him out and embed a GPS tracker?"

Thor looked like a kicked puppy, that was terrible and Tony would honestly feel bad if he was capable of that feeling.

"I let him out."

"You what?"

"I let him leave. I am sorry, I did not know he would come back here and disrupt your sleep—"

"Why would you do that, is what the relevant question is."

"Because he wanted to get away from me," Thor explained, looking away.

"I see," Bruce said. "I know this will seem intrusive, but it's actually important. Why did he need to get away from you so badly that you let him do it?"

Thor rubbed his hands over his face. "I was trying to explain to him that Father and myself must share the burden of guilt for his actions. I was trying to apologize. He could not hear it. He ran from me. I think he is still not ready to hear that I can forgive him."

"Oh, fuck me," Tony muttered. He and Bruce shared another of their scarily-communicative looks.

"Believe me: while he may never love me as he once did, I will never allow him to—"

"Thor. Um. He loves you _a lot_ actually."

"Did he speak to you?" Thor asked, his face lighting up with hope. Ow, right there in Tony's nonexistent feelings. Thor was just too much.

"Uh, yeah. He didn't actually say that, by the way."

Oh, yeah, that was definitely like kicking a puppy. It was possible Tony was capable of feeling bad. He was so not good at talking about emotional baggage, not even other people's.

"Thor . . . He is carrying a metric shitload of guilt around. He considers his actions so vile that he can't even think about them without having one of his episodes. And he cannot _handle _it when you attempt to implicate yourself in them. Do you understand?"

"No."

See, that was not fair. Somehow he made being dumb seem so cute. Most people just made Tony feel slightly manically aware of how much smarter he was, but Thor was kind of adorable.

"He looks up to you. He thinks you're a good person."

And now Thor looked like he had gas.

"He thinks he is a bad person. He thought he was above humans and now he thinks we're above him. He has had his entire worldview somehow completely changed and can barely remember why. He is literally trying to separate himself from what he did. He wants to be punished for it so badly that he's taking it out on his own body. You with me, here?"

"I am still standing here, am I not?" Thor said, sounding puzzled.

"Tony's trying to ask you if you understand Loki's thoughts," Bruce translated helpfully.

"I . . ."

"Great. So, that's why he can't listen to you when you try to say you're in the same category he is. For one thing, his ego's still there somewhere, and he subconsciously doesn't like you trying to equate yourself with him. For another, he thinks his actions were incredibly bad, and he wants to hold you apart from them. He wants to think of you as better than that."

Seriously, why did Thor trying to think look so much like Thor trying to take a painful shit?

"Because he loves you, man. He doesn't want you to get taken down with him."

And the light bulb went on. It was almost visible.

"Thank you, my friends," Thor said, grabbing them both around the neck and drawing them in to the most awkward group hug since the Stark Industries Board of Directors Team Building Exercise of 2006. "Thank you for all of your help. This is such encouraging news."

"Yeah, you're welcome," Tony yelped, attempting to extricate himself. Still, he had nothing on Bruce. The man slipped out from under Thor's arm and was across the room in the blink of an eye, twisting his hands together.

"Well, there is only one thing to do," Thor said happily.

"And that is . . .?"

"Tell Loki that he is good and does not need to punish himself so. The judgment of the tribune will not last forever, and he is still a prince of Asgard. If he knows that, perhaps he will not feel so lost."

"Oh, boy," Bruce muttered.

"Is this not what he needs?"

"Oh, it probably is," Tony said slowly. "But there's a difference between being told something and believing it, you know?"

"Yes, I certainly can attest to that," Thor said more thoughtfully.

"Much as it hurts me to say this, I think the two of you are going to be here for a while."


End file.
